Youth Novels
by Tjoek
Summary: Claire must come to terms with losing friends, Allison needs to know how to make them, Brian needs to rebel and Andrew needs to grow a backbone. John however needs to be a little nicer to everyone, especially his friends and his girlfriend. (Bendercentric mostly. Basically one giant John Hughes 1980s movies crossover).
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer and Warning from here to rest of story: This story is The Breakfast Club centred but it will feature characters from John Hughes's other movies because I'm trying not to do OCs. This will be very politically incorrect in places because the 80s were and so are these characters and I'm trying to keep in character.

'Youth Novels'

Chapter One

John caught sight of his two day old black eye in the rear view mirror. Deep blotches of red and purple superimposed the fading yellow bruise like an angry ugly birthmark. He put on his sunglasses, turned the key in the ignition and set off in his grey van, down along the long narrow driveway leading away from the Farm and _them,_ and out onto the road.

Soon the disgruntled shrubbery and broken pavements gave way to rows of neatly planted trees. John took a left onto Shermer Road and onto streets lined with beautifully painted mail boxes. He tried not to think about the sharp pain that shot up his right side every time he pressed his cigarette to his lips. It was better to listen to Iron Maiden and to think of red hair and diamonds, and to watch the husbands and the working Moms hurry from their perfect homes. Shermer was one of those towns travelling salesmen and new divorcees liked to stop in as they passed through. It was nowhere's asshole and a perfectly bleached one at that. The local 7-11 even had a selection of postcards featuring images of Shermer landmarks with the town slogan, "Shermer: A _real_ town" printed alongside whatever that meant.

As he pulled up beside a small white semi-detached house with an American flag flying proudly above a wheelchair ramp, he beeped the horn and waited. He had to wait, Duncan's parents hated him. Duncan's Dad had even hauled him out of the house by the collar one time he hated him so much. It wasn't proper for a good Greek family like the Papoulias to hate their son so they hated John instead.

The red front door flew open and out swaggered Duncan in his black leather studded vest jacket and red laced Doc Martins. John had always been envious of that jacket. Duncan's Mom had bought it for him back when she was still strong enough to walk. The only time he ever took it off was when he was gearing for a fight.

"It's bullshit, Bender!" The boy announced as he got into the front passenger seat.

John rolled his tongue across his teeth, smoked his cigarette and felt the pain run up his side like little men stomping down with red hot steal capped boots. There was dried foam from the morning's shave still stuck to the side of Duncan's bald head and a Marlboro burning between his fingers. Duncan didn't like to smoke cigarettes, he preferred to hold one while it smoked itself.

"I saw The Grave Diggers at the Warehouse Saturday night," he spat bitterly. "First time I've seen them since Tea turned into a colossal dickhead. Guess who their new drummer is? _Watts_. I never thought anyone could be worse than Peter Criss but low and behold, she is shit. It was so bad I had to down half a bottle of Jack in order to console myself-"

"You're no longer in that crap band, why do you care that she makes them sound even worse?" replied John shortly.

"It's like if Nico McBrain replaced his entire 24 piece drum kit with a fucking bongo!" exploded the boy and John sighed. "I was the only thing they had going for them. I helped write the songs-"

"Shitty punk songs."

Duncan scowled. "What'd you know? You don't know anything about punk!"

"S'not true," A taunting smirk formed on John's lips in anticipation. "I know punk died the day The Clash signed to CBS."

And Duncan was off just like he knew he'd be, cursing him out for being an ignorant asshole as the cigarette in his hand burned dangerously close to his fingers. John didn't care. Minor Threat could go fuck themselves as could Black Flag and every word the Dead Kennedy's had ever written. Duncan could go fuck himself too but it was more amusing to watch him rant. He had these big heavy lidded brown eyes, thick black eyebrows and overall good natured face that quickly turned into a snarling, spitting terrier when angered.

"-And you know shit cause real punk never even made it outta the underground!" Duncan said delivering the final blow.

"They did, they sold out and that is why punk is dead."

"Not _real_ punk," muttered the boy sulkily. "What's metal about? Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll? That's shallow!"

John glared at him. "Metal's true message has always and will always be in the sound and the fucking awesome guitar solos. Course, I wouldn't expect you to get it because punks can't play their instruments."

"That's bullshit! Sid Vicious is the only one who couldn't play and you know that!"

"So the rest of them are musically retarded by choice then?"

"It's not about fancy guitar solos! It's about sheading all the excess crap you find in the music industry and going back to the basics."

"Ah! So that would explain why the Clash signed to CBS."

"Oh fuck off, Jew Nose!"

John grinned triumphantly. He let Duncan sulk until they reached the end of the street before he caved. John didn't like silence. Senior was always telling him to shut up to be quiet… _'Don't dare open that mouth or I'll shut it for you, boy.'_

"At least tell me you punched Tea," he said eventually.

The punk let out a long wistful sigh. "Not yet but it will be a moment for the history books when I do," he promised and John knew it to be true. As far as Duncan Papoulias was concerned the world deserved whatever he gave it; it was the reason why they were friends to begin with.

"Get this though!" his laugh was back. "You know that wimpy art faggot Watts is always hangin' around with? He _tried_ to jump me cause I told her she was shit. The guy weighs about a hundred and twenty pounds. I ended up droppin' it after I got him on the ground. Wasn't worth my time _…_ Speaking of which; how was your date with the Dick?"

John rolled his tongue over his teeth. Saturday… He'd have had better luck explaining it to Garth and that was being optimistic.

"He gave me eight Saturday detentions."

His friend sat up to attention. "For real?"

John nodded. "Good thing I don't have anything more important to do with my life… If I wanted to lose my weekends, I'd start marking the stupid Shabbat again."

Duncan let out a low whistle, his thick eyebrows knitting together to make a very ugly caterpillar. "How'd you manage to get eight?"

"He said he was doing society a favour."

"Man, he _really_ hates you."

Dick did hate him and John hated him back but it was more than that. John could have told Duncan that he'd asked for them. It would've made Duncan laugh but John wasn't in the mood to be laughed at that morning. There were raised welts and multi-coloured bruises up and down his back and across his ribs. It hurt to bend over. It hurt to smoke. So he kept quiet and occasionally sought a glimpse of a diamond reflected in his wing mirror.

"He also took it upon himself to call my folks personally and tell 'em the good news-" John went on and Duncan grimaced. "Reinette had to give me a note for gym this morning after she chewed me up for her busted up lip─ Fucking blood problems, Dee."

It was Duncan's cue to drop the subject. 'Blood problems' meant it was time to talk about something better. 'Blood problems' were things that no one could change, things that it wasn't worth wasting the time it took talking about them. Garth had come up with it one night, buzzed up on pills and fed up with Arnie and his dead Dad and his sister who was always out around town spreading her legs.

"Two months though," then Duncan clicked his fingers together. "How about you go to the Guidance Counsellor and say you are being discriminated against. Say you wanna mark the Shabbat but can't because of detention. I'm serious! WASPs eat that shit up and I bet they'll be too busy feeling guilty about the Holocaust to reschedule the detentions."

John thought about it and then he remembered how much he hated going to Synagogue, even the idea of pretending to annoyed him. The only good thing about Reinette was that she never attempted to force her Southern Baptist agenda down his throat; although she still made them celebrate Christmas for God knows whatever reason. It's not like the Bender family were in the habit of exchanging gifts.

"You know my old man's entire extended family back in Europe died in the Holocaust?" he remarked.

Duncan's eyes widened. "… _Seriously_?"

John couldn't keep his face straight long. As the smirk began to crack across his lips, Duncan let out a stunned laugh. "Goddamnit Bender! Even for you that's low!"

John shrugged. "They probably did?" he replied callously. "Fuck 'em and fuck _him_ , I don't care!" Then his eyes caught sight of the spectacle standing on the curb up ahead. "─ _Christ."_

John had to shake back a laugh: Brian Johnson was waiting for the bus beside a large cardboard box with his name on it. He looked like the Alpha Aryan Nerd in his red sweater vest and ill fitted beige chinos. His mother had probably bought the pants in the hope that he'd grow into them. Brian however had grown upwards rather than outwards and now the leg hems barely grazed his ankles.

'… _Why don't you take Allison to one of your heavy metal vomit parties? Or take Brian out to the parking lot at lunch to get high? What about Andy for that matter, what about_ _ **me**_ _?!'_

On what John later said was a whim, he suddenly swerved sideways, ignoring Duncan's shout of alarm. Brian's jaw dropped as he rolled down the window.

"Are we having our yearbook photo taken today, Brian?" John nodded to the boy's outfit.

"Bender?" he asked, astonished. His eyes lighting up like the Fourth of July.

"Nice pants, dork!" jeered Duncan. "Did your Mom dress you?"

John hid his amusement behind a glare. "Do you mind? I'm talkin' here." He turned back to the boy. "Did she?"

The initial pleasure at being acknowledged gave way to embarrassment. Brian's ears reddened, he gestured to the box. "No, it's the Science Fair today─ _She_ wanted me to wear a suit," he added with a sheepish grin as John and Duncan roared with laughter. "…Do I _really_ look that bad?"

"Like a nerdy piñata stuffed full of lunch money."

The boy ran a hand hurriedly through his hair, his blue eyes reflected tales of mechanical elephants and flare guns and worst of all the image of John's own face. They turned his stomach and he began to wonder why he had stopped at all… _'What about_ _ **me**_ _?!_ ' Claire's words echoed over and over again.

"The kids on the bus are gonna string you up from the rails the second they get a look at you…" John paused. "Unless I give you a ride."

"To school?"

"No, to fucking Disney World," he replied sarcastically. "How much money you got?"

Brian's face fell. "Er-"

"I'm screwin' with you. Get in─ _What?!"_ he said to Duncan's comically arched eyebrow. "I adopted a pet during detention."

Brian climbed in beside Duncan and sat down. His arms clasped protectively around the box on his lap. John glanced inside. All he could see were plastic bottles filled with different shades of disgusting green liquid and a lot of plastic tubes: hardly the fine china Brian was treating it to be.

"What you got there?" asked Duncan.

"It's algae. Please be careful of-"

But Duncan had already taken out a plastic bottle and was unscrewing the lid. John rolled his eyes as the boy took a long whiff and gagged. "Christ! It reeks worse than an eighty year old's pussy!"

"How'd you know what that smells like?" asked John.

"Cause I fucked your Grandma last night."

"No wonder it smelled bad, my Bubbe's been dead eleven years."

Brian choked down a laugh as Duncan glared at him. "I was just- I wasn't laughing at you. I remembered something stupid, nothing to do with you," babbled Brian. "…Can I have it back, please?" he gestured to the bottle.

Duncan held it further out of reach. "Hey Bender!" he was grinning like an idiot. "Ten bucks I can drink the whole thing!"

The blond turned to John in silent pleading desperation and John pursed his lips together. As much as he hated to admit it, there was an element of truth to Claire's accusations about his friends being assholes. They had their reasons though and nice kids like Brian were part of them. John had seen the smug look of superiority reflected in a nerd's eyes too many times to count.

"I'm not giving you ten bucks just so you can barf all over my van!" he snapped. "Put it back in the box or I'm putting you out. And you-" he pointed at Brian. "-grow some balls!"

Brian gave a dumb nod of surprise.

"My apologies for offending your boyfriend," Duncan mocked but he screwed the cap back on and put the bottle in the box. "I didn't realise he was so sensitive."

"I know you're only doing it cause you wanna fuck him, you greasy Greek faggot," retorted John.

"Sorry to disappoint you both but I only go for blondes," interjected Brian so quietly that if it weren't for Duncan's startled laugh, John wouldn't have been sure he heard him.

It made him chuckle too. Finally, he was learning. "So why didn't Mr Johnson give you a ride this morning with your wares?" He gestured to the box. "Have a domestic?"

Brian carefully rearranged the bottles, checking each lid was secure. "Kinda," he replied. "I told him on Sunday that I'm taking the bus from now on-"

"I know your Dad being a teacher has already got you marked as lunch bait-" began John.

"Your Dad's a teacher?!" Duncan laughed at Brian's flustered face.

"It's a job! _So what?_ " the kid replied, remembering John's order. Duncan raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"-but you're gonna be eaten alive on the bus, Dweebie," John finished.

"I'd rather that then have to drive anywhere with him," replied the boy bitterly. "He and Mom think I should've been studying during that detention. He _knows_ you can't study in detention."

John struck a match off his steering wheel and lit up a cigarette before offering the pack and the matches to Brian in an act of solidarity. The boy took them. His long fingers fumbled with the matches and he coughed and spluttered as he inhaled a cloud of nicotine for the first time. Still, he persevered with all the determination of a newbie delinquent. John decided not to rib him for it. If a good kid like Brian went off the rails, his parents deserved everything they got.

"Well, it looks like you're gonna be hitching a ride with me from now on," said John and then his face split into a wide grin. "Your parents are gonna _love_ that. Didn't you tell 'em you were too busy doing that stupid essay to even try studying?" he asked, suddenly remembering it.

Not that it mattered that he'd forgotten, he wouldn't have done it anyway but in remembering it, John remembered once again what had happened in the storage closet with Claire. How she had leaned into him when he cupped her chin and kissed her. Her lips had been soft and willing and tasted of high class lipstick… He wondered if she'd still want to kiss him now that Monday had arrived. If she didn't he'd really have to do something to get her attention and this time, keep it on him for good. It was driving him half-crazy just thinking that she wouldn't want to.

Brian's wheezing cough brought him back to focus. The boy's eyes were filled with rage as dense as the plumes of cigarette smoke escaping from between his lips.

"They didn't care," he swallowed. "…Did Claire tell you that I signed it for all of you?" he then asked him. "I even sighed for Allison although technically I didn't need to."

John's throat tightened at Claire's name. "…Allison's something else," he agreed distractedly. "Well, seeming as I shared some of my personal stash with you, you owed me so we can call it even."

Brian grinned. "Have you spoken to-?"

"You guys got high on Dick's watch?"

They looked at Duncan in surprise. John had forgotten he was sitting between them. Judging by the expression on his face, whatever reservations Duncan had in regards to Brian were beginning to dissipate.

"Right under his nose!" John cackled triumphantly. "Tell the man about it, Dweebie."

"We smoked up in the library," began Brian. "We had to sneak out to Bender's locker to get the-the… _dope_ and we nearly got-" He jumped in surprise as Duncan let out a hearty cheer of approval.

After that, Duncan became less hostile towards Brian but the conversation still dropped and stumbled in places like a newly born giraffe trying to find its legs. Eventually they found a common interest in Monty Python and John was subjected to intermitted squawks of 'Jehovah' after they discovered that their bad English impersonations annoyed him. He swore at them, hit them and forgot all about checking the curb as they turned onto Garth's street. A well timed groan from Duncan saved him from making a serious mistake: Garth was waiting for them, the bong he'd made from a model toy submarine back in the eighth grade glued to his lips. Arnie was back home it seemed.

John quickly lowered the music. The curtains were still drawn at the front of Garth's house but that meant jackshit when it came to Arnie. Knowing him, he was probably hiding behind the rose bushes on the front lawn, hatchet at the ready.

"… Do you think he's awake?" asked Duncan nervously.

"Don't fucking jinx it!"

"What's going on?" asked Brian.

"Nothing," John lied.

They were still a good ten yards from Garth. John beeped the horn to draw his attention and kept a wary eye on the house. He didn't even crack a smile when Garth whacked himself in the mouth with the bong in surprise.

"Hurry up!" he ordered, leaning out the window.

Garth gave him a vague salute in response. He looked terrible but then again Garth usually did. His dark hair was greasy and sticking up all over the place. His face was drawn and his hazel eyes dilated and red rimmed from a night spent sitting on the curb, crying and getting high. He looked past John to his seat usurper.

"His name's Brian," Duncan mussed Brian's hair playfully. "He's our new pet."

Brian was eyeing Garth warily and it struck John that he'd heard of him. Most people had, Shermer was a close knit community and Garth had the worst rap out of the three of them thanks to Arnie. It was small realisations like that which John grateful for the age gap between him and his eight older siblings.

The glazed look in Garth's eyes indicated that he was on another planet entirely. "You can't keep people as pets, Dee," he chided with stoner sincerity as he raised the bong to his lips. "That's… that's slavery that's what that is."

"Can it and get in, Thomas Jefferson!" hissed John.

There was still no sign of movement in the windows but John didn't want to waste any more time. He slammed his foot on the accelerator the second Garth climbed in the back. It wasn't until they were two blocks away that he could breathe calmly again. Arnie was a goddamn psycho second only to Senior.

"Man, I…" Garth had sprawled himself out on the old battered mattress on the floor in the back like a starfish.

"Having a bit of trouble there, Garth?" asked Duncan.

"I wanna lie down flatter─ Oh! ... _Damn!"_ And he doubled over with senseless laughter. In the front, the three boys laughed at him.

"Hey Garth!" John called. "What've you had to smoke?"

"…Bags."

"Bags?" he smirked at Brian. Duncan's shoulders shook. "What type of bags, Garth? Plastic bags? Sandwich bags? Brown paper bags?"

"It was a plas-" Garth caught himself on. "…What's with the questions, man? You sold it to me."

Duncan howled as they tore down the road to school, Brian's bottles rattling together, Bruce Dickinson's voice roaring out the window at full blast while the good people of Shermer hurried out into the approaching day.

* * *

Monday morning got off to a perfect start. Claire picked out a crisp cream Ralph Lauren blouse and her brand new navy Christian Dior woollen slacks to go with her gold buckled belt, tan loafers and single diamond earring. She brushed her hair and lined her lips with lipstick, sprayed herself with Chanel No.5. She ate fruit and Greek yogurt in the drawing room overlooking the water feature that her late Great Grandfather had imported from Italy while her mother drank her first Bloody Mary of the day and her father silently held out his cup for the maid to fill.

There was no fight that morning, not a word passed between them. Claire would've preferred a fight. She wanted to hear the sound of plates smashing. Sometimes she imagined what would happen if she smashed the plates herself. Her parents would most certainly think she'd lost her mind. They didn't know was that she had already lost it somewhere between an unauthorized shopping trip and a diamond clasped in the palm of a bad boy.

One look was all her father needed to know he hated John. Claire didn't mind, that had been the objective in kissing him against the hood of his car after all. There had been no fights so far, just disapproval. Claire knew the real fights would come later. When the sound of Shayne's car horn beeped outside, the man peered over his newspaper at her.

"Is that boy picking you up?"

"Of course not, Daddy. Shayne is," she replied and he smiled in relief. Claire kissed both him and her mother goodbye and grabbed her coat and bag. "But I'll be seeing him in school. Bye."

"You're still grounded, Claire!"

"Oh honestly, Roger!" She heard her mother cry as she opened the front door. "She's already been punished enough-"

Claire rolled her eyes. Once again the roles had reversed. Her parents had become the Freaky Friday version of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde and she was the impure ingredient that facilitated the switch over. No doubt when Sylvia met John her opinion for once would be perfectly aligned with her husband's. After all, John was absolutely outstanding in his capacity at getting back at people.

Shayne's white jeep was waiting at the steps to the large Châteauesque style mansion, her curly haired best friend seated behind the wheel. Claire waved to her with a smile and closed the door on her parents' fight. Even if Shayne couldn't hear them, it was embarrassing to know they were fighting while there were other people in close proximity.

"I love your slacks, Claire! Are those new?" Shayne announced as she walked down the steps.

"Christian Dior," she climbed in the passenger seat as Shayne started the engine and they took off past the rows of artfully pruned Douglas firs and the acre of perfectly mowed front lawn.

"Hi Caroline," she greeted the blue eyed blonde beauty admiring herself in her compact mirror in the back.

Claire had often thought Caroline had the capacity to be perfect if she really tried. That Monday morning however, she realised that Shayne and her standards of perfection were not necessarily what everyone else desired.

There was a click as Caroline closed over her compact. "Amanda's getting a ride with Hardy," she explained at Claire's questioning look over the empty seat beside her. "So did you buy your new slacks on your skipping trip?"

There was an amused tone in her voice. Claire wasn't surprised. Caroline probably found the whole thing hilarious, especially the detention part.

"I did," she replied.

"They're cute," Caroline reopened her compact again and began flicking her hair to the side. Claire could see a hickey at the nape of her neck; that meant Shayne had seen it too. She would corner Claire in the bathroom later to bitch about it. Allison was right; it was a trap either way. "You know you could have just gone shopping with us on Saturday to get them rather than putting yourself through detention," she added.

Shayne gave a nod of agreement. "Honestly, Claire! I can't believe you skipped. You never skip."

"I can't believe you skipped _alone_ ," scoffed Caroline. "Where's the fun in that? Ferris always brings Sloane along when he skips."

"I'm not Ferris," she told her and Caroline raised her eyebrows in agreement. "I guess I just wanted to be alone."

"Well, next time check in before you go all Greta Garbo. Shayne threw a total fit when you didn't turn up to Economics."

"I did not have a fit, I was merely concerned! Everyone was worried about Claire other than you!" Shayne snapped scathingly before turning to her best friend. "Amanda was as worried as I was _._ Even Blane was asking about you-"

"Blane is hardly everyone," interjected Claire as the uncomfortable sensation of déjà vu echoed back in the sound of John's mocking voice, _'Queenie isn't here today!'_

"No kidding!" muttered Caroline. "He is so boring it makes me want to cry."

Claire ignored her. "-And besides, it's not like skipping class is a big deal. People do it all the time! Like Ferris! He skips _all_ the time and nobody raises an eyebrow."

"Claire, _you_ don't skip is the point," said Shayne patiently.

"Clearly I've always had the capacity to because I _did_ skip!" She leaned back in the seat, annoyed. For all her good intentions, Shayne was exactly the type of friend who knew how to heap the pressure on. Sometimes Claire wondered if her intentions were good at all. Sometimes she felt stifled by her. The look of surprise that passed between the two girls didn't go unnoticed by her. Perhaps she was being unkind.

"…Sorry," she said after a moment. "…My parents had this like massive fight and it was my fault. I ranked up two thousand dollars on my credit card bill during one shop at Ralph Lauren last month. Mom threw a total freaker. She was going to make me bring everything back but my Dad told her he'd just go buy them for me again if she made me."

"It's great he backed you up," said Shayne, thinking she was being sympathetic. "Two thousand is ridiculous cheap for a shop at Ralph Lauren. That's basically the least amount you can spend at once."

"Why does your Mom even care?" asked Caroline. "Your family are like the richest in the state. A couple of thousand is nothing to them."

"It's not about…" Claire sighed. "The day I skipped, I passed the five thousand dollar limit my Mom put on my card and when my Dad found out, he extended the limit up to one hundred thousand."

"So what's the problem?" asked Shayne. Behind her, Caroline was staring at her with a similar confused expression.

Claire considered explaining to them that it didn't matter what she did right or wrong, her parents were never happy with her or each other. Being a good girl didn't work and it was clear all the credit card bills and clothes in the world weren't going to make them behave the way she needed them to either.

Her friends might have understood but Claire knew that it would be more fun to leave her troubles in the hands of a boy with a bad reputation. That first kiss to his collar bone had been a curiosity. She had wanted to know what he'd do when he was forced to see her in a different light. Now she knew and now she wanted more and she wasn't about to let anyone try to change her mind about it.

"Forget it."

Shayne tried a few more times to drag it out of her but eventually she gave up and talk turned to Stubby's party. Claire was glad she hadn't made an appearance. It sounded as boring as watching paint dry. So much for Andrew's assertion that it was going to be wild!

"Was Andrew Clarke there?" she asked.

"Why? Are you interested?" teased Caroline.

"Hardly," Claire replied. She liked her boys wild and loud with danger in their eyes. "He was in Saturday detention. We made friends."

"Claire's like totally out of Andrew's league anyway," Shayne rolled her eyes. "What was he in for?"

"I don't know," she lied, remembering the skin and the hair that had been pulled off when they took the plaster away. "Andrew wouldn't want me even if I was interested," she said, feeling the compulsion to correct Shayne. "He's got a girlfriend…" she paused. It was better now than never. "And I'm sort of seeing John Bender anyway."

There was a pause.

"Who's John Bender?" asked Shayne but Caroline's eyes widened.

"As in Bender _Bender_ from our school?" Her mouth fell open. "Oh my God, Claire that is… You are aware he's got a criminal record?!"

"Wait!" The penny had dropped. Shayne was staring at her like she'd been replaced by an alien. "Have you lost your fucking mind?!"

"Your parents are going to flip!" Caroline was practically howling with laughter.

"I'm glad you think this is so amusing, Caroline," Shayne glared at her. "Claire! He's an asshole! And a drug dealer! And he listens to Heavy Metal! Only wife beaters and Satanists listen to Heavy Metal; fact!"

Claire sat and waited as Shayne listed off every reason why she shouldn't speak to John let alone breathe the same air as him: He dressed terribly. He'd fuck her and leave her. He'd fuck her and he'd get her pregnant and then he'd leave her. He'd cheat on her. He was poor. He'd scab money off her. He got into fights (that was why he was always bruised looking). He was a bully. Her parents would hate him. Her friends all hated him. Nobody liked him. He was a no one; a waste. The more she went on, the more upset Claire became. She had to keep reminding herself that it didn't matter what anyone thought; she had the right to stand up and like whomever it was she wanted to like.

"-People will lose so much respect for you," Shayne rounded off. "I mean, they're going to think you're a bitch for dating him."

"Then they never had much respect for me in the first place," she burst out, finally. It hurt to hear people talk about him like that. Claire blinked back the tears threatening to fall from her eyes. "It's not like going out with John is going to make me a different person."

"It might make you lose your shot at becoming Prom Queen," piped up Caroline. She looked bored already by the conversation.

Claire bit her lip. Before Saturday, being Prom Queen was supposed to be the crowning achievement of her High School career. It was all she'd wanted to be in High School since she was a little girl.

"I'd rather be Prom Queen because I'm well liked and not because I'm well known," she said.

"Well, you certainly won't be liked if you're going out with Bender," warned Shayne.

"Then I'll have to try harder to make people like me, won't I?" The tears fell regardless.

Shayne softened. "Claire, honey, you don't _really_ want to go out with a guy like Bender. You can do so much better than a guy like him. He's basically low grade white trash."

"That's a really nice thing to call someone you don't know," Claire snapped, feeling her anger raise its head. She dabbed at her eyes with her fingers. Caroline reached over and handed her a handkerchief. "He's fine once you get to know him," she said. "I like him, I'm not asking you to but I'm asking you to respect my decision."

Shayne pursed her lips together. "You're going to lose friends over this."

Claire stared at her, suddenly seeing her properly for the first time. "Is that a threat, Shayne?"

"Of course not," replied the girl huffily. "Why'd you even say that? You and I are going to be friends forever!"

But Claire had felt the first string snap between them. She had seen it in Shayne's eyes when she spoke; that look of fear. She turned to Caroline in sudden panic and the girl gave her a sympathetic look as if to say, 'Can you believe the _nerve_ of that bitch has saying that to you?'

 _To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

"Youth Novels"

Chapter Two

John was not a patient person. He'd always twitch or hum or drum his fingers on a desk whenever things got too tight. Reinette liked to tell people he had ADD. She told everyone that, told so many people the Student Counsellor eventually sent him to some shrink who specialised in child psychology. Said they wanted to test him to see if there were any underlining issues affecting his "performance". It was probably the only test John had ever aced in his life. He'd made damn sure to ace it. It wasn't him who was wrong.

That morning patience no longer existed. John was bored _and_ agitated. The remainder of the drive to school was setting his teeth on edge and it was all Claire's fault. Not that it was right to blame her for everything but it was easy and John was getting half pissed at her just thinking about all the things she'd said on Saturday. He wanted her, damn did he ever but she'd just had to go and say how things were going to go down on Monday. The earring made him think she wouldn't flake. He hoped she wouldn't. Maybe it was because she was like the apple in the Garden of Eden but he wanted her so bad it was making him doubt everything. Girls like Claire Standish didn't get with guys like him because they liked them, John knew that. They got with them because they had something to prove to their parents and to their upper crust white bred world. He'd run with her for as long as it lasted but he couldn't help but hope she wouldn't be so shallow as to use him without giving him something back.

"What's the matter, Bender? You've gone all quiet."

John smacked himself mentally. It didn't matter how stoned Garth got, he was always perceptive little shit when it came to picking up people's moods. The guy had this in built sonar that would trigger every time something was up. It annoyed the hell outta John.

"Blood problems."

There was an 'ah' of understanding. John made damn sure to avoid looking at Brian. The kid had loosened up again and was talking animatedly to Duncan but every now and then, he'd glance John's way.

So John talked. He laughed at Brian's science project. He called Duncan a Neo-Nazi _scum_ head just to piss him off and persuaded Garth to spell 'onomatopoeia' backwards ─ which was good for kicks because Garth was so high he couldn't make it past the first two letters without spelling out an entirely different word. They talked about what classes to skip, about who wanted to weed and what teachers were dicks. They didn't talk about Arnie or Senior or the eight detentions waiting for John. They didn't talk about the flare gun in Brian's locker. They didn't talk about Claire. John was relieved.

Despite all his efforts though, he felt himself slipping back into silence when they hit the traffic lights. He couldn't help it. Shermer High was only a few more minutes away and John's fancies were caught somewhere between turning the van around to safety and driving it up along the sidewalk, overtaking the traffic in front of him, pedal to the floor.

What he really wanted was a distraction to take the edge off. All the waiting around for the beginning to begin was driving him stark crazy. If he'd been bothered, he could have found one in the cigarette packet on the dashboard or in Garth's submarine bong or even in the pain running up his side. None of it appealed to him however; he wanted to get out from inside of himself.

He looked around and caught sight of a young professional busy flicking through his planner in the Jag beside him and decided that would have to do. Yuppies annoyed him, especially ones in paisley ties. They were always running around Shermer, acting like they were big wigs when in actuality they were just a crowd of sheep. Rolling down the window with one hand, John reached over and grabbed the abandoned half-eaten burger wrapped in a greasy wrapper from the dashboard. It had been sitting there for two weeks courtesy of Duncan. For all his highbrow vegetarian beliefs, Duncan always got a real hankering for meat whenever he got drunk. He'd always get halfway through it and then remember he was a vegetarian. Sometimes John would finish the rest of it but he'd left this one for whatever reason and now he was thankful he did. There was mould and the lettuce had gone squishy. Smirking to himself, he hurled it at the driver's window.

 _Thwack!_

The man jumped, flushed and rolled down the glass but the lights had gone green and John was already speeding, hollering away on the guitar solo on Children of the Damned.

"He's still shouting!" Duncan was half on top of Brian and his box, his head stuck out the window. "SUCK ON MOULD YUPPIE SCUM!" he roared. John grinned.

"What did he do to you, man?" Garth was talking. He'd sparked up a blunt after John yelled at him about the stench of burning glue coming from the submarine. The scent of weed wafting through the van was so strong that John knew a sniffer dog would be able to smell it through the metal about thirty miles away. "That guy's just tryna exist same as everyone else."

"It's not existing if your heart's already dead, Garth," John hated stoned Garth sometimes although stoned Garth was marginally better than sober Garth. Sober Garth was a drag.

From behind Duncan's revolted face, Brian was smiling knowingly. He was probably thinking of Allison. John hadn't said it cause of Allison. Allison didn't know what she was talking about.

"That's such a homo thing to say," mustered Duncan eventually.

"Everything sounds homo to your homo ears, faggot," John added for good measure.

"You know Allison stole my wallet on Saturday?" Brian said abruptly. He was trying to bring her up casually ─ the little bastard. "She gave it back after she told me my social security number."

John frowned. "She's fucking nuts."

"Who's Allison?" asked Duncan.

"Our friend. She's kinda crazy. Right John?"

But John wasn't listening anymore. He saw her, sitting in the front passenger seat of a white jeep behind them. The sight of her nearly threw his entire body from the driver's seat. He'd thought a lot about what he was going to do when he saw Claire. The thing was John was no longer thinking, he was seeing. There she was all gorgeous plump lips and red hair in his rear view mirror and all he could do was stare transfixed.

She looked beautiful… she also looked extremely upset. Even in the mirror he could see the wet trails shining on her cheeks. She blinked and stared into space, the same way she did when he asked her where she got her earrings and if she'd paid for them and if she'd got them as a Christmas present. It was like she was trying to drown out the world. Shayne Shrewsbury was whaling on her in the driver's seat.

John had never liked Shayne, now he disliked her even more. She was one of those preppy newspaper bitches who walked around with a pad and pen in hand, asking the rich and the beautiful their opinion on HIV or the impending invasion of the USSR or informing everyone what lunches the cheerleader team were eating ─ Garth always read the school paper and he'd told John that the 'what I eat for lunch' section was always dominated by cheerleaders even though everybody at Shermer knew about half of the team were bulimic. It was a pretty sick joke on Shrewsbury's part now that he thought about it.

It was probably for that reason John felt himself becoming annoyed at the way her hand repeatedly cut through the air. Claire was refusing to look at her. She looked even more upset than she'd been when she'd told him she hated him.

"Hey Brian?" he asked suddenly, an idea forming in his head at the low hanging branches up ahead. "Have you ever driven before?"

"I've… Just my Dad's fishing boat," was the low, embarrassed reply.

John sat there for a moment, silent. Thoughts of homework and lockers and F grades circled his head. He slowly turned to stare at him.

"You are joking me."

Brian was bright red. "I've never done my homework on it before though."

"You're Dad makes you do your homework when you go on family trips?" Duncan sounded scandalised. "Fuckin' hell man! Do you ever catch a break?"

"He doesn't, that's the point," John replied for him. He glanced in the rear view mirror once again; they were still fighting. "Fishing boat is good enough. Duncan swap."

It was all elbows and knees for a moment as Duncan climbed over the box and the boy and shoved him into his seat. Brian didn't move a muscle. He merely let himself be herded along like a sheep. From his expression John could tell that he would not resist but nor was he going to actively concede to whatever insanity John was concocting. His eyes went wide when John stopped the van abruptly in the middle of the road. Car horns blared, he ignored them. The on-coming traffic was too heavy for anyone to overtake or go into the next lane. Shayne was swearing at his vehicle in the rear view mirror. It made him grin with smug satisfaction.

"Bender stopping suddenly like that in the middle of the road is probably considered a traffic violation," began Brian with concern.

John arched an eyebrow. "Young man, are you trying to tell a licensed driver the rules of the road?"

"Uh-"

Grabbing the box from Brian's hands, John dumped it on Duncan's lap with a warning look not to screw with it. He was pretty certain Duncan wouldn't. From the looks of it, he'd finally developed a fondness for the nerd. Fondness however wasn't much to go by as far as he and Duncan were concerned. They both liked Garth well enough but they also liked picking on him too. They picked on him so bad sometimes that John almost felt bad for him.

As John began to shift his feet up onto the driver's seat, he issued instructions to Brian. "You gotta take it off the clutch before you can start moving. Just pull it up by pushing down the button as you lift it. Brake pedal is your left, accelerator is your right. Don't slam your foot down on it. Put both hands on the wheel and keep in a straight line."

Brian looked terrified. His hands were gripped to the steering wheel for dear life. "I don't know how to drive!" he whimpered.

John waved it off. "It's either you or Volbeck and he looks like he's been at the toilet cleaner this morning." There was a dim muffle of 'get bent' from the back mattress.

"What about Duncan?" Brian was staring at the skinhead desperately.

"He's not allowed to drive my van," said John.

"I'm not allowed to drive his van," repeated Duncan. He was pretending not to notice Brian's discomfort as he poked through the box again. Opening the lids and re-smelling them for some bizarre reason.

"Under any circumstance," John went on.

"Even in an emergency," added the skinhead.

"But I don't get why I have to drive! Why can't you drive your own van?" demanded Brian. "I'll crash it! I don't even know where the indicators are!"

"One's on the left and the other's on the right," replied John and Brian glared at him sourly. "And one more thing; if you crash it, I'll fucking kill you." Then John popped his head out the window. There was a lane of cars tailing back about fifty yards. People were screaming over the beeping horns, their heads sticking out their windows in red faced fury. John relished the sound. It was a million times better throwing a hundred rotten burgers at a yuppie's car.

As he grappled with the metal surface, his side sang with pain and his shoulder knotted. John ignored it and gripped the plastic roof bars, pushing his feet against the bottom of the open window; he hoisted himself up, left knee first and then the right up onto the top of the van. From up there everyone looked like a mound of pissed off fire ants.

"MOVE IT DICKHEAD!" roared a voice over the blaring din.

John stood up, spreading his arms wide, legs hip width apart and knees slightly bent. He refused to look back at Claire. If he did, she'd know that he was only trying to get her attention and that would be lame.

"Crank up the volume and put the pedal to the floor, Big B!" he banged his foot on the roof.

"This is a very bad idea!" Brian shouted up at him. "There's branches up ahead!"

John laughed. "I know!"

"ROCK 'N' ROLL, BENDER!" Duncan was sitting halfway out the window, hand raised in a rock salute. Gone was Iron Maiden. From the sound of the music coming from the windows, Duncan had gotten a hold of his Venom cassette. John flipped him the bird.

The van rolled forward as Brian jumped into action under John and Duncan's furious instructions. Gradually it picked up speed. Brian wasn't the worst for a first time driver, he was slow and kept swerving from side to side making it damn near impossible for any motorbikes to overtake. People were really angry now. Some guy five cars back was screaming about calling the cops. John was laughing. It felt good to be up there on top. It was damn hilarious how they got worked up over nothing.

As the van approached the first of the hanging branches, John took out a cigarette, lit it with a match and put it in his mouth before lazily reaching up his arms to grab on. He held on for ten seconds, until the van had passed fully underneath him and his arms felt like they were going to pop from their sockets. Then he dropped, right in front of Shayne Shrewsbury's car like a cat.

"WHAT THE FUCK ASSHOLE?!" screamed the girl as she slammed on the breaks.

A shock of pain jolted upwards through John's muscles and bruised tissue from his feet. He shook it off, swept down to pick up his fallen sunglasses. He hoped Claire hadn't noticed the black eye. Putting them on, he took a drag from his cigarette and turned to face the jeep, casual as you please. Claire was shaking her head in exasperated disbelief but she was smiling. She looked her best when she smiled.

Jaws dropped however when he jumped into the back seat beside the hot blonde. He settled back in a cloud of cigarette smoke. "Step on it, Curly. We don't wanna miss your chance to write up what lunches the cheerleading team will be regurgitating before practise."

John smirked. Shayne was staring at him like he was some shit covered dog who'd just rolled himself all over her brand new cream carpet. He flicked the ash on the floor deliberately. Her eyes narrowed.

"Who gave you permission to get into my car?"

"Can't be helped, someone's driving mine," he replied before turning his attention to Claire. Her dark eyes sparkling like moon light on the water.

"Forget your pencil?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Something like that."

Claire was biting down on her bottom lip. John swallowed. How he was supposed to begin this one he wasn't quite sure.

"I'm overseeing Brian's first driving lesson if you must know." He nodded to the swerving van. "Gotta make sure he keeps in a straight line. Very important. So far he is failing abysmally."

Claire giggled. "Brian's driving?" She'd turned fully in her seat to face him. "Has he ever driven before in his life?"

"He assures me that he's had some previous experience steering his Dad's fishing boat-" Claire grimaced and he shrugged out an 'I know'. He wasn't proud at all that he'd guessed the truth. "Relax, I've told him if he crashes, I'm gonna shove a flare gun were the sun don't shine."

Claire fought against it admirably but her traitorous lips trembled and the sides of her mouth split apart in a wide grin as the real Claire shone through. Although he'd called her a bitch for it, John could respect her little cruelties for what they were. They rendered her more human, more like him.

"You are such a jerk!"

"Hey! Who was it that laughed when she first heard Larry Lester's buns got taped together? _Hmm?"_

"Pfft! That actually happened to someone?!" scoffed the blonde. Carrie or Caroline or something like that was her name? John wasn't sure. He knew her to see, she was a cheerleader. He'd seen her in her pompoms wrapped around Jake Ryan plenty of times like a damp cock sock.  
"It's not funny, Caroline!" Claire scolded severely. "It really hurt the guy. He ended up having a whole pile of hair and skin ripped off when they took off the tape. It was really bad."

"You laughed too as I recall," John pointed out. "Snorted actually."

"And immediately I felt terrible afterwards!"

"Claire's right, it isn't funny," interjected Shayne. She glanced at John with disgust. "Did you do that to that Larry guy?"

"I didn't," he replied. "But I know the guy who did."

John wondered what she would say if he told her it was Andrew who'd done it. She'd probably have a meltdown but he wouldn't rat out Sporto, it wasn't his style. Shayne turned her attention back to road and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, 'It figures' under her breath.

"And by the way, I don't snort," Claire folded her arms. "Remember that."

He let it lie with Curly. He knew Claire wanted him to. She was warning him to with the look she was giving him.

"I heard it clear as day and it was terribly unladylike, Miss Standish," he tutted. "Whatever will the ladies at the Country Club say?"

"They'll be far too scandalised by the fact you're my boyfriend to care."

John rolled his tongue over his bottom teeth as his mouth fell slightly open. He hadn't been expecting that, and in front of her friends nonetheless. He was her boyfriend, not some guy she was playing around with. Claire was smiling coyly back at him but there was a shyness lightly dusted across her cheeks in a soft pink blush. They had Brian's failed suicide attempt to thank for this, he supposed.

"What are you doing tonight?" he asked.

Claire sighed. "I'm still grounded. My parents are in total Jekyll and Hyde mode right now. Now it's my Dad who's saying I can't go out," Then her eyes came alight with mischief. "I think it's because he didn't like the look of you."

"Then of course you gotta sneak out, Princess. Whaddyah say? Nine-?"

"Sorry to interrupt!" said Shayne, not sounding in the least bit apologetic. "But can you go and back to your van?! Your friend is holding up the traffic!"

"Great right?" John glanced up to where Brian was still snail crawling down the road. "Half the school's gonna be late at this rate."

"Maybe a bu-" she stopped herself. "Maybe _you_ don't care about being late but Claire has to make an announcement about the bake sale that the student council are holding for Africa."

He turned to Claire. "A _bake sale_ for Africa?"

"Don't!" she raised a warning finger. "Don't, John."

"Don't what?"

"Say whatever it is you are going to say."

"Claire, what can I possibly say other than do you not see the fucking irony? Promoting obesity in the name of starvation?"

"At least I'm doing something to make a difference! What are you doing?"

"Me? Why I provide the weed that will insure your customers are hungry enough to buy."

Beside him, Caroline burst into giggles and John decided that she wasn't half bad. She had a weird laugh though, sounded a bit like a hyena.

Even Claire smiled despite herself. "Thank you then for the support, John."

"No need to thank me, Princess," he grinned. "I'm sure it will be the bake sale to end world hunger once and for all."

" _Thanks_."

John knew from the frosty edge in her voice that he should quit while he was ahead but sometimes it was just too easy. "So did the live in chef do the baking?"

Claire's eyes flashed. "No, a group of us got together on Sunday and did it."

"Shopping for cookies and cakes doesn't count."

"Uggh! You are so condescending! I know how to bake and cook. I'll even prove it to you sometime. Now go and put Brian out of his misery, _please_ ," she added.

"You never answered my question."

"Well, since you were so rude about the bake sale, I'll think about answering it after you go and help Brian."

John exhaled another cloud of smoke, flicked the cigarette butt away. He held Claire's gaze. She said nothing. She refused to budge. Seconds later, her eyebrow arched in confusion. He could see her expression shift, becoming more and more self-conscious beneath his stare. Then he leaned in and kissed her.

It wasn't a long kiss. He did have to go and stop Brian from really killing himself with his van after all. She kissed back harder than he expected, like she wanted him to stay. Her hand went to the back of his head and twisted in his hair and John broke their mouths and pulled away. She was staring at him, eyes dilated, her bottom lip caught beneath her teeth and the makings of another kiss. He could've kissed her a thousand times for the way she did that. It was the sexiest thing he had ever seen.

"Deal."

And with that he jumped out of the jeep and hurried down the road to where Brian was pushing dangerously close to ten miles per hour.

Later in the parking lot, after they'd sent Brian packing with his box and a dead arm for good luck, John stood against the van, selling baggies and listening to Duncan's gaggle of Sophomore minions yammer on and fucking Ray McCarthy talking about Police Academy ─ the dude always hung around for too long after he bought. Occasionally he glanced over to where Claire was on the other side of the parking lot. She was greeting friends. She had too many friends. It felt to John like she had hundreds of them. They were all bright and utterly shiny in the morning sun like plastic. He watched them hug and kiss cheeks and laugh in their chinos and diamonds and crisp polo shirts, all the while moving towards the front doors slower than Brian Johnson could drive.

Eventually her friend group whittled itself down to its usual foursome and broke away. Her eyes began to search the parking lot until eventually they fell on his. Shayne was muttering something in her ear like a goddamn shoulder angel. Claire ignored her. She smiled at him and lifted her hand to reveal a folded piece of paper held between her fingers. John pushed off the van. It wasn't too much of a hassle to meet her half way.

As he approached, her friends hurried towards the steps. Caroline nodded to him, she looked incredibly amused while Shayne glared and hurriedly whispered something to the other girl in their posse, Amanda Jones. John hadn't spoken to her since Elementary.

"Good luck with the cheerleader's lunches, Curly! Teenage bulimia is always riveting read!" he called after her. Shayne hurried on Caroline burst out barking in her wild dog laugh.

"You know, you're not making a very good impression on my friends," But Claire's smirk mirrored his own. Obviously she was still sore over whatever herself and Shayne had been arguing about.

John pulled his lips back in a half smile. "It's not problem she can't buy herself a sense of humour."

"I know she was being… She's just in a mood today. She-It doesn't matter," she dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

"Let me guess, she had an aneurism after I left?"

She bit down on her lip, closing the gap between them. "Kinda," she admitted. "Caroline's okay though with us dating ─ not that it matters what other people think or that I need their permission or anything," she added hurriedly in an effort to reassure him. "She thinks I'm crazy but she doesn't care really at all. She's kinda a bitch that way."

"But Shayne isn't?"

"Shayne's just..." she sucked in a deep breath. "Sorry, I'm like totally mad at her right now so I'd rather not talk about her. Here's my address," she handed the paper to him. "Wait for me at the bottom of the drive. I'll meet you at half nine. There shouldn't be any problem with me sneaking out. Dad's going to be out all night. There's a big company party being thrown to celebrate some deal they finished closing last week. And Mom… well, she was already drinking before I left this morning. If worst comes to worst, I can just ask her if I can go out and she'll say yes just to piss him off."

John could tell from her expression that she'd rather not ask. After all, where would be the fun in that? He took the piece of paper and put it carefully in the breast pocket of his denim jacket. "I'll make sure to bring the footmen."

She smiled, biting on the inside of her cheek. "You could try being a little nicer to my friends."

"You're not with me cause I'm nice to your friends, Sweets."

She rolled her eyes. "Why are you wearing sunglasses?" she asked then curiously.

"Eye protection against UV rays and all that."

"In March?"

He knew she was going see it if not now then later on tonight. It was one of the enviable things that she was going to see a lot of. Sometimes he came in beat up and that was just how it was. So when Claire reached up and gently removed the sunglasses, he didn't stop her. It was better to get the ugliness over and done with.

"Did he do that?" her voice was soft, sad. Much as he disliked her sadness, it looked good to see her in colour. Her red hair was like fire, illuminating the grey morning with its light.

"Yeah ─ Look, it's fine. It just looks bad," he found himself explaining. "It'll be gone in a day or two. It's already fading, see? I've had worse-" Claire's lips stopped him midsentence.

His body relaxed as she wrapped her arms around his neck and curled her fingers in his hair. His hands went to her waist and up her back, clasping her towards him. Behind them, the boys stood up and took note. Whistling and cat calling soon followed. God, did he hate his friends.

"Fuck off!" John broke the kiss and spat at them before turning his attention back to her.

"What did you tell them?" Claire was staring at him accusingly.

"Nothing," he replied. "Honest! They had no idea I was on speaking terms with you until a minute ago when you came over. Give me some credit at least."

Claire arched an eyebrow, unimpressed but she didn't push him away.

"I'd bleach those lips afterwards if I were you!" called Ray. "He's got a wallet full of- _Ow!"_ John turned with a snarl just in time to see Duncan smack Ray hard across the head.

" _See that?"_ he gestured to Ray. "If I had said anything, I would've told them you already knew about that. …Honest to God," he added.

Claire stared at for him blankly. For a second he truly thought she was going to scream and shout and start kicking him but then her mouth slipped into a mischievous grin.

"God, you should see your expression right now. You look totally freaked."

"Oh, you bitch."

He didn't say it mean. Nevertheless she still blinked, a little take a-back. "That's a real nice thing to say to your girlfriend."

"I'm not a very nice person. And I've called you one before." He added.

"At least tell me you haven't still got all those girls' pictures?" she was staring deep into his eyes, waiting. John could see galaxies in there.

"Not anymore."

"Better not," she warned, putting his sunglasses back on his nose. She moved to leave but John wouldn't let go. "I've got to get to Home Room early, John."

"Ah yes, _Africa_ ," he recalled, capturing her lips again.

She was like liquid the way she'd surrendered into the kiss and him. The bell rang in the distance, John ignored it and so did she.

"CLAIRE!" shouted Shayne from the steps.

Claire broke away, a little flustered and dazed. Her red lips were bruised and swollen, her breath heavy in her throat. "I-" she stopped herself with a smile, a giddy giggle bursting from her mouth. "I gotta go."

"CLAIRE! C'MON!"

"JUST A SEC!" she called back before turning to John. "You have to let me go." She gestured to where his hands were still planted on her waist.

"But my hands are comfortable where they are. Do you know how hard it is to find a good waist to hip ratio these days? It's all these bake sales for Africa I'm telling you-"

"John!" she tried to sound severe but his name got caught in a shriek of surprise as he launched an attack of butterfly kisses across her face and neck. "John!" she protested, giggling. "I'm serious!"

" _CLAIRE! OH MY GOD WOULD YOU STOP SUCKING FACE AND HURRY UP?!"_

"Christ," John muttered, looking up. Curly was red faced and livid. "Does she let you out for walks often?"

"Stop," she shoved his shoulder lightly. "She's not that bad and I'm should go. I've _got_ to go," she then reaffirmed. "She's only having a freak out because she's writing a huge newspaper article about starvation in the third world and what teens can do to help so the bake sale is of course included in that ─ You can admire my _hip_ to waist ratio all you want later."

John ignored the dig. "Is that an invitation?"

Claire didn't reply. She broke away from him, coquettish little half smile playing on her lips. John stared after her as she rushed up the steps towards Shayne. A little voice in his head kept telling him that he was rushing into this; that girls like her didn't get with guys like him because they liked him. He didn't care. He didn't give a rat's ass about that at all any more. Then he walked back to his van and punched Ray McCarthy so hard in the stomach the boy bent double, wheezing and groaning.

"Lay it on me, Bender!" Duncan held up his hand for a congratulatory high five as the boy on the ground gasped for air. John took it. "How'd you swing that? She's got a rep for shooting guys down faster than a machine gun."

"We had Saturday detention together. Nothing like being trapped in a vacancy to get you acquainted with someone."

"So not only did you get high but you did it with Standish?!"

It took a moment but John did swallow his pride: it was one hell of a gulp. "We haven't done it yet," he corrected him. "She's into monogamy, dates nights and all that commitment shit. So I'd appreciate it if you'd all show a little more respect towards her cause she's gonna be a permanent fixture."

Duncan arched an eyebrow and pulled down the corners of his lips like a St. Bernard. "You're going steady? With _her?_ "

"I am," John tried his best to sound casual. " _What?"_ But he knew 'what'. They were all staring at him as though he'd suddenly started speaking in biblical tongues. "Look," he said, getting agitated. He licked his lips and swallowed. "She's never kissed a guy before me. Girls like her don't jump from a zero to a sixty-nine at the drop of a hat. It takes a little more effort."

"Oh man… you are whipped," said Duncan finally. "Someone call a doctor! Bender has finally been _WHIPPED!_ " he shouted at the sky as his minions erupted in laughter.

John just let it wash over him. Screw them all. He'd gotten Claire Standish and he wasn't about to let his pride mess it up by doing something stupid like denying it ─ not unless she messed him around and even then he wasn't sure. She'd got him so messed up already he felt light and warm and a whole pile of other fuzzy stupid feelings he didn't know. God, how the mighty had fallen.

"Lay off, Dee. He _is_ serious about her," Garth spoke up. "He even held up the traffic this morning just to talk to her that's how serious he is-" John could have knocked him out for telling everyone. "I think it's cool you dig her. I'll admit I had her pegged down as shallow like the rest of the richies she runs with."

"Claire's alright that's just her friends," he said before turning his attention back to the shower of bastards in front of him. "I suppose the best news about this for you dickheads is that now you might _finally_ get a chance to score." A few smiles faltered. John took his wallet out of his back pocket and took out the offending item Claire was demanding he get rid of. He held it up to the group. "I was gonna make a donation of the Babe Book but now I'm thinking I might just burn-"

"Claire is smoking!" said Ray desperately. "You are at the very top of the high class pussy totem pole-"

"How does it feel to be the most envied guy in this school?" asked Duncan.

John tossed Duncan his much coveted collection of girls. The boy caught it with a grin and opened the plastic folds. John wasn't even sorry to see it go. It's not like any of the girls had liked him enough to care. Duncan was right, he really was whipped.

"I guess it falls to me to return each one of these to its owner ─ Telephone numbers are on the back, yes?" Duncan nodded to John with an air of self-importance. "Garth?"

He handed the boy what John instantly recognised as Lydia's photograph. John watched, trying to push back the guilt with a grin. Garth was going to be pissed as hell with him in a second.

"Why are you giving me a picture of Lydia?" Garth stared at it in confusion.

"Cause it was in Bender's Babe Book and I don't fuck friends' sisters."

Garth dropped it like he'd just been bitten. "Why'd you have her picture? I thought it was just that one time!" he demanded of John.

"She insisted that I take it as a memento," lied John.

Garth was glaring at him like he'd like nothing more than to rip out his intestines. He felt a little bad about it. It wasn't like he'd planned it. Lydia was hot and the first time he'd been drunk and she always made the first move so it wasn't his fault. She came on to everyone. Duncan was probably the only guy left who hadn't fucked her. She'd probably fuck her own brother given the chance.

"Yeah _right!_ " spat the boy.

"Relax Volbeck, he won't be doing it with her again," grinned Duncan. "Bender has been laid low by Cupid's arrow. I might keep a hold of it though-" he picked it off the ground and began slipping it back in the plastic pocket. "In case I change my-"

"Gimme that!" Garth snatched it from him as they all laughed.

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The words that came from the mouths of Andrew's friends weren't bad or cruel but Allison watched their eyes. You could always tell when people were being phoney; the meaning behind the words didn't quite reach the whites. For the most part, they didn't speak to her. She was Andrew's girl and that was it; just another brod for an athlete to hang his Varsity Sweater on. Had she not been wearing a head band to hold back her hair and Andrew's blue hoodie and been as she was normally dressed, she would have raised a few eyebrows. They would've laughed their asses off at her just like Claire said.

She didn't quite know how to feel about it, standing at his locker surrounded by so many people as they talked about a world she didn't understand. Andrew kept squeezing her hand and asking her questions. He also kept glancing to his friends too, worried, waiting for them to say something but they were too busy talking about Stubby's party and the next meet and how brilliant Police Academy was. Allison decided she didn't like Andrew when he was like this. He was much better when he was on his own like on Sunday evening when they'd gone out for milkshakes together.

What she needed to do was to find the others. It wasn't good enough just moping around Andrew's friends. They weren't like her, they weren't like Andrew either but he played the part of the jock around them and she was cramping his style. He'd never say it of course but that was the truth.

When the bell for Home Room rang, she left him with the promise of lunch together and resolved herself to find the others. It wasn't until she entered the art room for second period that she realised what she really needed were her own group of friends, separate from Andrew and Claire and Brian and John. The four of them already had their own cliques. They all already fit in, she didn't. She had nowhere to hide but the wallpaper.

Friends were people with similar interests. She looked around. Art was her interest and the people in here liked art. At the table near the back sat one of John's friends, the Skinhead, he was busy carving something into the wood with a knife. Allison wondered what the boy would say if she sat down next to him and told him that she knew John. He'd probably call her a liar.

"Excuse me."

Allison turned, startled. A tall auburn haired boy smiled politely at her as he pushed past her, his sketchpad in his hand. _Keith Nelson_ , her brain registered dimly.

"Hi," the word jumped out unbidden.

Keith looked surprised and Allison realised she must have sounded like a weirdo.

"Hi," he said back before making his way to his usual desk by the window. As he put down his sketchpad, the Skinhead looked up and snorted.

"Nice shiner."

"Thanks, you gave it to me," muttered Keith, not looking at him.

"Oh, you're very welcome," the Skinhead smiled vindictively. "I still stand by what I said. It's the truth, she's shit."

"You're free to your opinion."

Keith didn't say anything more, no matter how much the Skinhead goaded him. Allison decided that she was definitely not going to sit with John's friend but neither was she going to sit with Keith. His friends had arrived, a tall red haired girl in floral print and second hand lace and Ducky, the boy who was always talking too fast and too loud like he was about to collapse.

It was too crowed to make friends. Allison gave up and went to her usual seat by the window near the easels, alone.

Minutes ticked by, Miss Hoover was running late. Allison took out a pencil and began writing the Humpty Dumpty rhyme on the desk. _'Couldn't put Humpty together again…'_ She wondered if it was possible to be whole and yet have pieces missing. She was sure it was, sometimes she felt that way. When the door finally banged opened. Allison expected to see Miss Hoover in her beads and long shawl. It wasn't her.

"What are you guys doing here?" asked the Skinhead, bewildered.

John Bender was in the doorway, a red eyed boy with greasy, messy brown hair in a leather jacket standing by his elbow. The boy looked to the art.

"Wow, imagine being here on DMT, man. I like the head-" he pointed the abstract papier-mâché piece dangling from the ceiling, one eye three times bigger than the other. People ducked and looked away, afraid.

John pushed past him. "Don't bother getting up, Duncan," he told the Skinhead. "We're not here to see you ─ Young lady, I believe you have stolen property in your possession! Hand it over right this instant!" John announced in his best Vernon impression. Allison's eyes went wide. He'd been to his locker. How he knew though was a mystery.

"Do you know how fucking hard it was to find you?" John went on, stopping in front of her table. The red eyed boy sat down opposite her with a silent nod of acknowledgement. He smelled liked he'd been doused in cheap aftershave, probably to cover whatever it was that had made his eyes red. "-You're like a fucking ghost. We checked out nine different class rooms before we came here. Mr Tanner threw a black board eraser at my head ─ Missed too, the dumb fuck."

"Hey Bender! Check it out!" Duncan, the Skinhead was pointing to Keith proudly. The boy lowered his gaze and turned away, trying to make himself as small as possible.

"That's the guy?" John was staring at Keith. "Christ, no wonder you floored him so quick."

Allison glared. She didn't know what had happened but she didn't like the casual words of humiliation John was throwing around.

He shrugged at her expression. "Just making an observation? He's about the size and weight of a bean stalk hence why he got his ass handed to him─ I'm sure you will agree," he said to Keith before turning his attention back to her. "Lock?"

He hadn't changed at all.

"You don't deserve it."

"Did Sporto blow you off? Is that why you're being a colossal bitch? Cause I can make it that he never wrestles ─ no, never _walks_ ever again."

At that, Allison thawed. He was still gruff, still pricklier than a hedgehog and probably the world's biggest asshole but he was, despite it all, still her friend.

"He didn't," she replied. "We went for ice cream yesterday…" Then her eyes narrowed. "How did you know I have your lock?"

"You're pissed cause I caught you out? Christ, you're weird," he shook his head as she frowned. "You're the only person in this entire school who knows they can steal from me and get away with it. If it were anyone else, I'd kill 'em."

"Bull-"

"And I know you have my knife too. I want that back, it's a family heirloom."

"- _shit_."

But it struck Allison that there was a slim possibility that John might be telling the truth. He'd seen her around before. He'd told her that. He knew she existed. He might have even seen her lifting something before. But then again, it was John.

"You and me should hit up the mall together sometime and see how many records we can fit into that bag of yours," he went on.

"I'm not a thief." She wasn't, she was a big dirty liar.

John didn't so much as bat an eyelid. "Well, I am so think of it like you'll be putting them in your bag my behalf."  
"I don't have your knife. I threw it in a river." She hadn't. It was lying at the bottom of her bag.

"That was my dead brother's."

"That's a load."

"Alright, he ain't dead but I want it back. It's about the only thing one of my siblings has ever given to me."

"You're not getting it. You shouldn't have threatened Andy with it."

"So you didn't throw it in a river? Good to know. Also Sporto shouldn't have been being a dick. He tried to jump me, remember?"

"You were being the dick," she retorted. "You were harassing Claire."

"Well, Claire and I have since made up and out and now we're going steady so it's all water under the bridge. Ask anyone, we made out in front of the entire parking lot _after_ I dropped Brian and his science fair project off to school," he finished.

"You were speaking to Brian?" Allison was surprised.

John gave her the biggest shit eating grin she had ever seen. He knew she hadn't been expecting that. "I also gave him his first cigarette and driving lesson this morning. We're the best of friends."

"He told you I took his wallet, didn't he?"

"Might have let it slip," he admitted.

She shook her head in distain for the small part of her that had believed him. John was really full of it, almost as full as she was. She suddenly became aware of the silence. She looked around. People were watching. The entire class were listening intently to their conversation for some reason. Allison wondered why. She'd never spoken to any of them before and none of them wanted to speak to her but now they were listening. They were probably listening just to hear how much of a freak she was.

"What the hell are you looking at?" John snarled and they quickly spun back around. "The nerve of some people-" Allison smiled crookedly. "So lock?"

"Say please."

"Say please," he mimicked.

That was close enough. Allison upended her bag on the table with a clatter. She'd taken out the clothes but she'd kept everything else; John's knife, his lock, Andrew's patch, candy bars, painkillers, rubber bands all wrapped up in a ball, a sewing kit, a kazoo, tea bags, sanitary pads and tampons, identity cards, a slinky and whatever else took her fancy. John snatched his knife and lock back before she had a chance to stop him.

"Don't fucking take them again," he warned before looking down at the chaos. "No room for the kitchen sink?"

Aftershave boy was shifting through the pile, picking things up to inspect before discarding them again. She didn't mind. It was just stuff. Duncan's curiosity got the better of him. He joined them at the table and picked up the identity cards.

"She's got more chicks than you," he told John as he flicked through them. "Does this one have a number?" he held up a card of a pretty faced brunette.

Allison shrugged. She'd found them. Some she'd taken from purses in the girls' changing room. She didn't know why she did that. It was just something to do.

"You could bring it to a police station and find out?" she suggested with a wiry grin. Duncan gave her a wide smile of approval.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Allison."

"I'm Duncan. Nice to talk to you."

John's friends appreciated her, she realised. They didn't care that she wasn't cool or that she was crazy. In fact, they'd probably liked her more because she was both those things but they were trouble. They left marks, such as the bruises on Keith's face and the redness in Aftershave boy's eyes. Friends like John's were liable to explode just like John did. They would hurt and cut and laugh at everything because the world was too unfair. Still, they were better than no friends at all.

"These things are bigger than I thought," Aftershave boy mused, holding up a sanitary pad for inspection. "My sister uses tampons. She says they're more comfortable."

"That's an interesting euphemism Lydia's got going there for your friends' dicks, Garth," John remarked snidely and Duncan began to chortle as Aftershave boy glowered at them.

The comment annoyed her. Allison snatched the pad from Garth, ripped off the back plastic protector and slapped it across John's sunglasses in an act of female retribution. There was a pause. People stared. John just stood there, pad on glasses.

"On the rag?" he asked dryly.

"Eat shit."

Duncan and Garth exploded with laughter. As Allison glanced around, she could see some people smiling in approval. It was strange, and then she remembered that most people didn't like John. John took off his sunglasses to reveal a fading angry bruise around his eye. Allison felt her heart stop. She knew where that had come from.

"Where'd you get this chick, Bender?" asked Duncan, recovering. "She's wild!"

"She's in your art class, retard. If you'd have bothered talking to her you'd have known that already ─ How do you get the glue off?" John demanded in frustration, holding up the glasses to show the clear marks running across the lenses from where he'd ripped off the pad.

Allison snatched them from him and rubbed her nails across, heating and peeling it away in little clumps. If she'd known she would have done something else. She would have thrown a pencil at him or told him to go to hell.

"Excuse me? What are you two doing in my art class?"

Miss Hoover was standing in the door,

"This is art class?" John snatched the sunglasses back from her and put them on before turning around. "Sorry, I'm blind-" he grappled at the desk, knocking pencils and candy bars flying before grabbing Garth's head and yanking it sideways. "- _Garth?_ Is that _you?"_

Garth shifted his red gaze slightly to meet Allison's and rolled his eyes as if to say, 'do you see the sort of shit I have to put up with?' She bit back a smile and began putting her stuff back in her bag.

"Would you boys mind explaining what you are-?"

"Garth!" John interrupted loudly. Garth winced. "─ He's deaf, Miss. GARTH! It APPEARS WE ARE IN ART CLASS! ─ Very sorry about this, we were supposed to be in the Gymnasium but he's got no sense of direction-" he was talking to the wall. "Can't read a timetable either."

Allison snorted a laugh into her hand. Bender truly lived up to his namesake, Miss Hoover looked ready to explode in a cloud of charcoal and white spirits. She glanced over to where Duncan was doubled over, silently laughing to himself. Garth however was bemused, tired even like a worn out actor rehearsing the lines of play he had performed every night for twenty years. It struck Allison there that not all John's friends appreciated his antics. Some were like Garth, simply exhausted by them, especially when they were the butt of his jokes.

"Out," Miss Hoover had put down the supplies and was pointing towards the open door.

"Can't see my way, Miss."

The class watched in amusement as the woman marched across the room, grabbed Garth and John by the upper arms and steered them towards the door.

"In your professional opinion," John went on as she pushed them along. "Do you think there's a market for a blind painter? Cause I can do finger painting no bother, can't see a damn thing but everyone likes a gimmick-"

Miss Hoover snatched his sunglasses off his face. John blinked. There was a ripple of sniggers around the room. She glanced over to Keith and his friends; they didn't look amused.

"It's a miracle!" John gasped. "I can see! How did you do that?!"

The class roared with laughter.

"Can I have those back?"

"Go to class or I'm sending you to Mr Vernon's office."

After they were gone, Duncan turned to her. "Whaddyah think of punk music?"

Allison thought about it. "I like the Ramones and Misfits."

And that was it. There were no deep confessions needed or tears. Duncan talked to her for the rest of art class. He even moved his belongings from his desk and sat down beside her. It was the first time anyone had ever spoke or sat beside her willingly for a full class of anything. He told her from her look, she'd like Siouxsie and the Banshees and that his Dad worked as a security guard at an art museum. He told her about the time he'd gone there at night after everything was closed up with Ferris Bueller and Garth, the boy who smelled of cheap aftershave and drugs. He told her not to tell John because John thought art was dumb ─ Allison got the impression that Duncan cared a lot about what John thought was dumb.

She told him about the concerts she'd been to by herself, and how she liked to take photographs of people in the rain because you could see their doppelgangers reflected in the puddles. She also told him what a doppelganger was. Duncan was nice to her and she was happy that he wanted to be friends but it also felt as if he'd been given a reference.

At the end of class, Allison glanced once more towards Keith, the red haired girl and Ducky's table. When the girl caught her gaze, she flashed a friendly smile before turning away to pack her bag. It was a small gesture Allison knew but at least it was a start. As she left the room, she made sure to swipe John's sunglasses from the teacher's table.

 _To be continued…_

A/N: So for future reference, Garth is Garth Volbeck AKA Charlie Sheen from Ferris Bueller (and yes, that was his character's actual name for those who don't know). All of the characters from Some Kind of Wonderful will featured in this too, mainly Duncan, Amanda, Keith, Watts, Shayne and Ray. Sixteen Candles very own train wreck Caroline Mulford is here also as is Jake Ryan. Andie, Ducky, Blane and Steff from Pretty in Pink will be here as well and to a minor extent, Ferris Bueller, Sloane and Cameron. I've got enough OCs going with the BC's families, don't need any more.


	3. Chapter 3

'Youth Novels'

Chapter Three

John felt his jaw drop as he pulled up outside _Caddington Park_. Neither darkness nor the large cast iron gate could obscure the old limestone Chateau's snobbish intent. There were balconies and turrets and hunched up gargoyles peering down sullenly from the rooftop at his battered old van. John sneered back at it and told himself that it was the heat from the radiator working up the sweat on the back of his neck.

' _What the hell am I doing?_ '

He took out a cigarette, stuck a match off his sleeve and stared out at the house as he tried to normalise its image in his mind. Boys like him didn't wait inside their dingy vans outside of houses like this. Boys like him needed stick to the burbs' peripheries, to the parking lots and the pool halls and rundown trailer parks where they belonged. They weren't supposed to look at girls like Claire let alone be with them so why he was sitting outside her house ten minutes early, he couldn't quite explain.

The stubborn part of him tried think of it in purely sexual terms. Claire was just another girl after all, another series of body parts; _'Perky tits, nice long legs, cock sucking lips'_ ─ but eventually even it had to relent. Claire was more than that. There were too many things caught up in the hormones. John leaned back in his seat, unsatisfied and glared up at the house. _'Whipped,'_ Duncan had mocked him and by God he was.

Suddenly, the passenger door flew open. John nearly dropped his cigarette in surprise.

" _Gogogogogo!"_

Wheels skidded into action, pulling away from the curb faster than his Uncle Eddie had totalled his speeding car. Claire slammed the door shut mid-swing and slumped back into the passenger seat with a huge sigh of relief. For a second neither of them spoke, struck dumb by adrenaline and the giddy relief of escape.

"Are both glass slippers accounted for, Cinderella?" he asked despite knowing that Claire didn't need a Fairy Godmother; she was already Diana, Princess of Shermer High although that evening she was masquerading as a Bond Girl in her long beige mackintosh and cream polo neck dress cinched in at the waist by a brown belt.

She rolled her eyes and flashed him a pair of familiar leather boots. "I ran the whole way down the drive," she admitted breathlessly.

"That eager to see me?"

Claire blushed. "Well, it would have been rude to keep you waiting seeming as you arrived ten minutes early…" she replied with a casual air. "That eager to see me?"

Like he'd ever admit it. "I figured it was a better place to pass the time than at mine. Senior's home this evening," he lied. Senior had a bowling tournament.

"Your Dad? Are you named after him?"

He shook his head. "We can't name people after living relatives in my family-"

"Why not?"

"It's an Ashkenazic tradition," John dismissed it. "His full name's Jon _athon_ and since the Bender Clan is rather lacking in imagination, we both get called Johnny. It kept getting fucking confusing during family reunions so we changed it."

Claire grinned. "Sounds traumatic. Who are the Ashkenazic then? I've never heard of them."

John sighed. Of course she hadn't. "That's cause it's a Jewish thing and with a surname like 'Standish' I highly doubt you're Jewish."

She let out a small laugh of surprise. "You're Jewish? Well, I assume one of your parents isn't because you celebrate Christmas…" Then she shifted in her seat, settling her body to face him. John could see right up her dress. "So what's the different between Ashkenazic Jews and normal ones?"

"They come from Eastern Europe," he said, bored. God, why had he said it at all? "And a couple of thousand years ago they outlawed polygamy or something like that. I can't remember." She was wearing white underwear.

Claire cast him a pointed look, oblivious. "Obviously you didn't get the memo on polygamy."

"It arrived a little late but I got it eventually-" Claire looked pleased. "Nice panties by the way. Same ones as Saturday?"

He eyes widened in horror. John chortled with laughter as she twisted around, slamming feet down in the correct position. Claire tried her best to compose herself but the damage was done. She pulled on the hem of her skirt, binding her knees together in virginal modesty.

"I did _not_ do that on purpose so don't even think about saying I did!" she warned him.

"I'm not complaining. I like your panties," he shot her a leering grin. She tried to scowl but failed miserably. "As a matter of interest, Claire," he went on. "Are you Catholic?"

The question took her by surprise. "I am."

John let out a deep rumbling chuckle. Now everything made sense. "I've got a cure for that," he smirked. "Don't you worry."

For a second Claire looked as if she was about to inquire as to what exactly but quickly thought the better of it. She closed her gaping mouth and gathered herself back together into her usual perfect self, pantie slip ignored.

"So what's it like?" she asked.

"What's what like?"

She shrugged. "I dunno? Being Jewish? I didn't know there were Jewish people in Shermer."

It was John's turn to roll his eyes. Of course she didn't. "Wanting to know if I'm circumcised?"

Claire arched an eyebrow. "You are such a─ I wasn't even _thinking_ about that."

"But now you are."

She let out a groan and John knew the conversation was dropped. His religion or lack thereof was not something he particularly wanted to discuss. It was fucking boring and anyway, it was Senior's thing so he asked about her world instead.

"How the hell do your parents manage to find each other to start a fight in that place? It's fucking Buckingham palace."

Claire gave a tight smile. "With a lot less difficulty than you might think," she sighed. "Mom like insists on family meals."

"Do you have one of those stupidly long dinner tables where they sit at either end screaming at one another while you're in the middle under the chandelier?"

She laughed. "They prefer to sit closer together, that way they don't strain their voices."

"How civilised of them, my folks only scream louder the closer they get," he replied and she shot him a sympathetic look. "So… has Mrs Standish managed to drink the entire contents of the wine cellar this evening?"

"Probably," Another sigh. John rolled his eyes again. Claire's parents had a wine cellar. _Of course_ they had a wine cellar. "-She was completely comatosed when I left. She always throws this total fit whenever Dad goes out to a function without her. It's _so_ childish. She falls asleep with the TV on full blast so he's forced to put her to bed whenever he gets home."

"Why doesn't he just leave her there?" he asked incredulously. "I would."

"Because she's like a million times worse when he does that," she groaned. "She wakes up really hungover on the couch at like six am and starts this big drama. It's-" she broke off with an exasperated shake of the head. "…I know they could be worse," Claire said meaningfully after a moment. "And I'm not trying to make you to feel sorry for me. I know it could be _a lot_ worse," she added again quickly, glancing at his black eye. "But knowing that that doesn't make it any easier…" She fidgeted with her nails nervously. "You understand, right?"

John gave a small grunt of consolidation. He understood only too well. _'…When you grow up, your heart dies…'_ Allison's words and their finality stuck like a stain that he couldn't wash out. Much as he hated to admit it, maybe, just maybe, the whack job was on to something… Maybe it would if he kept comparing lots and Claire had no one who cared. The thought scared the shit out of John.

"Screw them," he said after a moment.

She smiled softly. "And screw yours too."

Under the glare of the passing yellow street lights overhead, she looked goddamn tragically beautiful, all wrapped up in her diamonds and cashmere on top of his battered up passenger seat. The sight of her made his breath catch in his throat. It was like she was some dying beacon in the dark, full of hope and at the same time utterly without it… Whatever way it went down between them, John knew it was going to decide what type of people they were going to turn into. He wasn't sure yet how he felt about seeing the future in his hand.

"So where are we going?" she asked curiously, watching out her window as her neighbourhood of BMWs and ornamental gardens gave way to the freeway.

"Ever played pool?" he asked.

"Once or twice, not in like ages. We've got a billiards table at home but we never use it."

Of course she did. John rolled his tongue over his teeth as his mouth fell open in a smirk. "Then it falls to me to improve your skills. The hands on approach will be necessary I'm afraid."

Claire didn't giggle and blush like another girl would. "And have you helped many girls improve their skills? Aside from the obvious ones you've done it with."

"Only the special ones," he replied smoothly.

Finally he got a smile, and John convinced himself that was the end of it. As they drove, the primordial awareness that had been building between them since Saturday began to seep into the atmosphere, fizzling and crackling like an electric current. John kept glancing distractedly at her thighs every few seconds. She was nervous. She shifted and wriggled in her seat innocent as can be but every time she moved the material would ride a little higher up her leg. Or maybe she was doing it on purpose, now that she knew he was looking…?

Whichever one it was, John just barely managed to fight the urge to pull over and kiss her until they got to Skinny Bill's Billiards. The parking lot was empty but then again, it was a wet Monday night and parking lots rarely gave a good indication as to how many people were out. Most people didn't have cars. John parked beneath the blown out eight ball sign and turned to face her, fully intent on making up for lost time but her expression stopped him. It was a picture of intense curiosity. Her dark eyes darted from side to side, soaking in the diamond shaped security gates bolted and locked across the lower windows and the grey harsh ugly lines of 1950's commercial architecture.

"Well Toto," he said with a wide grin. "We're not in Kansas anymore."

"Evidently," she peered at the heavy iron front door covered in flaking postings. "Are you sure this place is open? It looks closed."

He chuckled. "Princess, if this town was hit by the atom bomb tomorrow, Skinny's would still be open. Places like this are always at their busiest when everything else goes to shit."

" _Lovely_."

"Having second thoughts?"

There was a click as her door opened. Claire stared at him defiantly and stepped down out of the van onto the wet tarmac. She waited for him by the door. John grabbed the handle and pulled it open for her. For a moment Claire held back, peering into the empty corridor lit by blinking strip lights the same way Alice did with the rabbit hole.

"Ladies first," John grinned.

She pushed her nose high in the air and strutted past him, refusing to be intimidated. John threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her against his side just as she reached the double doors leading into the reception and bar. They pushed on through together. There were rules for places like this. It didn't do to hold doors open for girls or to hold their bags and John wasn't that sort of guy anyway, at least not around other people.

Skinny's was the same as it always was. The same as it would always be; full of hustlers, sharpshooters, high pocketers and kids just looking to kill some time. John nodded to the old guard at the bar as they passed on their way to the reception.

"No weapons?" Claire stared at the red letters on the sign behind the glass.

"There was a shooting here last year," said John, handing over his knife to the bubble gum popping Betty behind the desk who bagged it and put it on the shelf beside the guns and all the other blades. "Some guy pushed his luck too far."

Claire absorbed this information silently. He could tell from the tenseness of her shoulders that she was uneasy. It wasn't Wonderland she was stepping into after all. Finally, she was beginning to realise that.

"How did that happen?" she asked.

"He picked the wrong guy to hustle, made too many cheap shots," he added. "He's still alive─ Relax, Princess," he half teased. "I'll keep you safe."

Claire didn't look entirely convinced but she was either too proud or too curious to ask him to take her home. Straightening her back, her expression slid into the ice cold bitch face she reserved for battle. John smirked. It'd take a lot more than a few drunken chumps and gun shot to dissuade Miss Standish.

"There's a guy working up a storm on Table Eight tonight, Johnny Boy," Betty told him as a bubble popped and stuck to her red lips. "Got Dice Man with him."

That surprised John. He hadn't seen the Dice Man in years. However, it wasn't a night to be catching up with old acquaintances so he declined but thanked Betty for the tip anyway. She was alright, Old Betty. She was always willing to let John in on the rack because she knew John was as much a part of Skinny's as she was. They'd always be there, him and her just like at the Hotel California. As he went to take out his wallet, Claire reached for her purse. He stopped her and handed over the five bucks to Betty for the four hours.

"I could've paid," she told him as they made their way towards the cubbyhole bar and its shelves stacked full of ripped open cardboard boxes of multipack chips and cans of beer and coke.

"They don't do change for fifty dollar notes here."

"I don't mind."

"I do."

Claire didn't try to pay for the six pack of beer, much to John's relief. Even at Skinny's there were certain rules and John's pride wouldn't have allowed for it anyway. Unlike her, he'd worked for every cent, one way or another. When they entered the pool hall, John reached the end of his patience. He swept down and staked his claim on her lips for everyone to see. Claire kissed back greedily and John knew that she'd been waiting to kiss him for as long as he had her.

"Move it there, Johnny Boy," complained a voice behind him. "You're blocking the door."

John broke the kiss and grinned back at the speaker. He kept one arm around her shoulder and the six pack in his other hand as they swaggered down past the pool tables and the clinking balls to the quieter side of the room. A few people nodded to him as they went but most were watching Table Eight. Sure enough, the Dice Man was there in his trademark red dice t-shirt, a cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he spoke. The guy working the table looked like a real blow over but judging from the claps he was making waves.

"Do they really not ask anyone for ID around here at _all_?" Claire remarked.

John tore his eyes away from the game and followed her gaze to the gang of kids shooting pool and smoking at the back. Some of them were drinking beer too. He shrugged it off and stopped at the empty table furthest away from the kids. Bending down, he put the first token in the slot. The balls came out with the same old rattling _thunk_ John knew in his bones.

"You sound like Brian," he grunted as he began to arrange the balls sloppily in the rack with the eight at the centre.

"They're like twelve!" she exclaimed.

"They've got no place else to go."

From her silence it was evident that such a thing had never crossed her mind. He cast a quick glance to see if she was contemptuous or disbelieving or worst of all, totally detached. She looked sad however.

"Believe it or not," he began. "This pool hall is responsible for rearing many upstanding young individuals. Hell, my brothers used to bring me here all the time when I was younger and look how well I've turned out?" he finished with a grin.

Claire bit back a smile and ran her hands over the balls, spinning them so that each number was facing upright and the same way around. John arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

"I'm guessing your brothers are a lot older than you?" she asked, forcing herself to forget about the kids.

"Seven and six years," The beer can hissed and spat a little as he cracked it open and handed it to her before opening one for himself. "Had my first cigarette courtesy of them when I was eight, I also got drunk for the first time right over there by that very same pool table-" He gestured with the beer to the kids' table. It felt like a million years ago now, way back when the twins were still interested and before Derek had gotten heavy into smack.

Claire looked physically disgusted. "What age where you when you did that?"

"Ten. I puked all over it. You can still see the stain on the cloth, had to mop it up with my brother's army jacket. Man, was he pissed."

"What did he do to you?" she asked, her eyes twinkling.

"He broke a pool cue over my back," he replied. Her jaw dropped.

"That's horrible!"

John grunted. He could still remember how much it had hurt. It'd been Eddie's fault of course. He'd laughed and thrown Mandy's jacket on the table first and sworn blind that if John used it he wouldn't tell their brother but he did. Even as far back as then Eddie had been an asshole. Mandy was too for that matter, however John liked to think he'd gotten Mandy back for all eternity for having been the one responsible for getting him stuck with the name 'Mandy' in the first place.

"What a total dick," Claire frowned angrily. "…I just can't get over how young you were. I didn't start drinking at all until I turned sixteen. I can like count the amount of times I've been drunk on one hand."

John could well believe it. "It is an ancient and noble tradition of the Bender family to get the kid brother wasted," he said with mock pomposity. "Our older brother did it to them and I'm pretty sure my cousin did it to him back when he was a kid too."

Claire continued to shake her head. "Yeah, but at ten? That's majorly screwed up."

"A given whenever my family is involved," he handed her the cue.

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Too many," he grabbed a hold of her shoulders and positioned her at the bottom of the table before the white ball. "Right, show me what you got."

Posture and form were things that came naturally to Claire, a few adjustments of the hips or the angle of the cube and really, she was good to go. Once they were about halfway through their second game, it became evident that John was scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses to keep correcting her and she was competitive enough that she was beginning to find his helping hands a hindrance. Eventually, he just sat back and for the first time ever played a proper game of pool on a date.

"You've got it," he remarked on her form as she went to take her shot.

"I did ballet for thirteen years," she said as the five potted and she began to eye up her next shot. "I guess I pick up techniques quicker because of it."

It made sense that she was a dancer, especially a ballerina. She had the grace, hopefully she had the flexibility still. John could have a lot of fun with that. He'd liked what he'd seen of her dancing in the library, unhinged and confident in the company she was keeping. Claire's everyday movements were much more constraint and composed, less her.

"Can you do that thing where you spin while standing on your toes?" he asked. "You know the name of it. Sounds like a dessert."

Claire bit back a smile, her dark gaze twinkling in amusement. "A pir _ou_ ette? I'd have thought even you knew that one."

He forced his lips into a straight line. "Sorry, what was that again?"

"Pir _ou_ ette," she said. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "…Are you making fun of me?"

"Nope. I just knew it was gonna sound way better if you said it."

She gave him a kiss for his trouble. John caught her around the waist when she did, letting her body sink against his. It felt good her body pressed up against him and even better, it felt right. John couldn't get over how right it felt. He'd never felt like that about a girl before.

"Oh? So you _are_ capable of saying nice things!" she teased as she broke away. Even in the darkness, her pupils were dilated. "Who'd have thought?"

"Was that nice?" he asked in disgust. "I'll bear that in mind so I don't make the same mistake twice."

Claire's groan quickly fell silent when he pulled her flush against him for another kiss. A large part of him wanted to just forget about the game all together. Virgin or not, there was a lot to be said about girls who knew how to use their assets in creative ways such as lipstick application but Claire was a tricky one. She wasn't fast but she wasn't exactly tight either given her little trip to his closet. It was hard to know what speed to go at.

"So," he let go of her and picked up the cue. "You speak French and do ballet, are you French?"

She shook her head. "No, my ─" her brow narrowed quizzically. "How did you know I speak French?"

"You do that thing French people do when they speak, it's like you're trying to decide if you're gonna spit or swallow."

"Gee _, thanks._ French people don't sound like that. _"_

"And you're anal over pronunciation."

"I'm not anal, it's just not pronounced _Mo-lay_."

She had him there. John let her off with it. "Can you do a pirouette?"

"Not anymore. I haven't done one in like ages."

"I bet you a million bucks you still can."

But she shook her head. "And the answer is 'no', I'm not going to try do one for you."

Like that was ever going to deter him. It took much cajoling on John's part and another bottle of beer until Claire finally relented. He had to swear not to laugh, of course, under pain of death and she told him she would not, under any circumstance, be able to perform it on her tippy toes. John promised and crossed his heart twice as she brought her right foot forward in a sideways position, her legs and back were straight as a board, her arms raised, her eyes fixed on his.

A quick jump and a raise of the leg and she was spinning away in the darkness. John leaned back against the pool table and grinned, honestly impressed. She didn't just spin once, she spun twice, her red hair wiping through the air like flames dancing, arms rising up as she went. And then suddenly it was over. In the aftermath, she was statuesque, her feet bent at parallel angles, one in front of the other. When she moved her leg forward, the spell broke and she turned from ballerina back into Claire once more.

"Why didn't you do that on Saturday?" he asked. "Not that the lipstick trick didn't have a certain _high class_ charm to it."

John chortled as Claire shoved him but he could see her delight in having surprised him.

"You're impressed, right?" she asked eagerly. "You thought that was good." He shook his head no but his mouth told the truth. She beamed. "I didn't do it on Saturday because I'm not good at it," she admitted after a moment. "Like, I was only able to do it just there because I've been drinking a little."

"If you needed something to take the edge off, I had plenty of weed. Hell, Andrew turned into fucking Footloose on it."  
She giggled. "It wouldn't have worked," she insisted. "It shouldn't have worked just there. My form's way too sloppy─" She held onto the table as she bent over, laughing out of sheer disbelief and wonder. "I cannot _believe_ I just did that! I haven't done a pir _ou_ ette in like _two_ years!"

John arched an eyebrow, nonplussed. "Could've fooled me. I doubt Sporto on weed could've pulled that one off and he's probably been wearing a leotard for longer than you ever did."

But Claire was shaking her head. "In ballet it's not just about what you do it's about how you look doing it," she explained. "Your posture and balance have to be completely perfect otherwise the whole ballet troupe looks crap."

"Well, you weren't performing with a ballet troupe on Saturday so it wouldn't have mattered. Would it?" She didn't reply. John took a cigarette out from the packet, offering her one. She took it. "...Why'd you quit?" he asked as he held the match up to light hers first.

"I wasn't good enough," she declared as she exhaled. John snorted. "I wasn't!" she insisted. "To get anywhere half decent I'd have had to give up my entire social life and all my afterschool activities. Ballet is just one of those things you have to be perfect at otherwise there's just no point."

John stared at her for a moment. "Christ, you _are_ anal."

"I'm not!"

"Claire, in your own words you quit because you only wanted to be perfect at it. You fucking arrange the pool balls in the rack until they're all facing directly upright and the same way around─ and you correct pronunciation."

"It's still not _Mo-lay_ , John."

"Don't use my bad French as an excuse not face your anal retentiveness," he countered. Even Claire had to laugh at that.

"Oh my God, you are unbelievable," she picked up her beer. "I am not anally retentive! I just like things to look nice, that's why I rearrange the pool balls-" John stared at her, completely unconvinced. She was sinking fast. "-And for the record, with ballet it's either perfect or nothing. There's no in between, John."

"According to _who?_ "

Claire hesitated and rolled the cigarette but in her fingers. He could see Brian in her in that moment. That same pent up anger hiding behind the eyes, waiting to be released. Claire was different from Brian however. Good was the thing she acted because people told that was what she was supposed to be and Claire did everything people told her to, the same as Andrew. _'Whatever happened to Andrew?_ ' His brain asked.

John took another drag. Fuck Andrew. "Do you enjoy dancing?"

"I do," she admitted.

"Then why give a shit what anybody else thinks? You care way too much about that sort of crap." She was staring at the ground. John leaned down until his eyes were level with hers. "It looked good enough to me, Claire."

A soft smile split across her face. She settled back beside him, resting her head against his shoulder. John settled back too and tipped his can against hers with a dull clink before taking a swig. They stood there like that, in silence, game forgotten. They didn't need words really, they'd already said so much to one another on Saturday.

"John…" she began thoughtfully. "If I had done that instead of the lipstick trick would you have still laughed at me?"

He turned away, picking up the cue, the moment of intimacy broken. "As you'll recall, I didn't laugh."

"Would you have been as mean?"

John shrugged and leaned over the table, taking the first of what was to be the last three shots of the game according to his calculations. A new game, a different conversation. That's what he was banking on anyway.

"Then I'm glad I didn't do it."

John stopped and looked at her. She was stubbing out her cigarette, avoiding his gaze. The way she'd said it made him wonder what exactly had been said to her to make her stop dancing and by whom.

"…So what is it can you do?" she asked after a pause. "You never told us."

John finished the game and straightened up, rolling his tongue across his bottom lip as his mouth fell open in a cocky grin. "You're gonna have to be a little more specific there, sweets because I can do a _lot_ of things."

The tell-tale pink tinges of desire rushed to her cheeks. "I didn't mean like that."

"Did you not?"

She swallowed and licked her lips but otherwise held perfectly still, her gaze holding his. Another more experienced girl would have wrapped herself around him in a kiss, maybe even shoved her hand down the front of his pants if she was particularly adventurous. Claire however was not that girl and right now she was swimming out of her depth. Now that he knew the perimeters, it was easier to play with them.

He'd wait for another time. Grabbing his beer, he settled back against the pool table. "Aside from being a master at navigation, particularly in the area of school corridors-" Claire snickered, her uncertainty forgotten. "-I am the best goddamn shot this side of Chicago."

"For pool? Or guns?" she asked.

"Pool, although I'm not too shabby with a shotgun either." John took his wallet from his back pocket and took his lucky twenty out from in between the folds. He wasn't one for superstition but he'd never lost that twenty. "And to prove it," he went on. "I will bet this here twenty bucks in a game against an opponent of your very choosing."

She held his gaze for a long moment as she weighed up his wager. "The guy at Table Eight," she said finally.

John could have kissed her. He _did_ kiss her. Short and quick before he grabbed her hand and led her towards his future victory. People moved out of their way when they realised he had come to play. There were a few mummers of encouragement, some of warning. John however took one look at the man's Mohawk and fishnet vest and he knew he had him beat. Only losers and Duncan dressed like that.

"All or nothing?" he threw down the twenty on the pile as the punk finished slaughtering his final victim.

"Aren't you a cocky kid? ─Hey Dice!" he turned to the man who was currently chatting to one of the old timers. "This kid thinks he can beat me in an All or Nothing─ You're on," he told John.

John grinned and glanced at Claire. She was seated to the left of Dice, up against the table, her purse and the remainder of the beers on her lap. The kids had come over; the oldest one was eyeing her with interest. Quite a few people were. Claire wasn't the sort of girl who'd normally wash up in a place like Skinny's. She however pretended that they weren't there. Girls like her were used to freezing people out.

"Who now?" Dice searched around for the next opponent. When his eyes landed on John's, they widened. "Is that Johnny Boy?" he asked in disbelief. "Holy shit, you've sure grown up. You're looking more and more like Donny these days."

"And you're still wearing that stupid fucking t-shirt," replied John, refusing to acknowledge the comparison between him and someone he had never met. The man chuckled. "What are you doing back?"

"Why, Lord General is visiting from New York-" he nodded to John's fishnet wearing opponent. "-Ex-vet, served in Nam," he elaborated.

"And hated every minute of it," grunted Lord General as he set up the rack.

John grinned as a ripple of disgruntled mutters made its way around the crowd. It wasn't good to talk trash about Nam around the working class. Talk like that might be considered unpatriotic which in John's opinion was pretty hilarious. He couldn't remember the last time the country had done anything for any one of them.

Dice slapped his friend on that back. "Said he wanted to shoot straights so I thought I'd bring him to my old haunt to see if any of you kids were up to scratch. Can't say you've been having any luck. You're playing him now? You're biting off more than you can chew, kid."

John wasn't frightened at all. "I was the best when you disappeared and I've gotten better."

"Gotten bigger too," Dice grinned. "How are your folks keeping? How's your Dad's back?"

John shrugged. How on earth Dice knew about that was beyond him. "Go ask them yourself."

"Prickly kid," Dice arched an eyebrow. "General was just complaining about having four little sisters growing up. I've been telling him how easy he's had it in comparison ─ Johnny Boy is my Maggie's kid brother," he told his friend as he pointed to him. "Youngest of nine-"

John stared at him in disgust. "You're dating Maggie?!"

"Going on two months," Dice looked smug, like he'd fucking achieved something monumental. "She's a keeper."

"My condolences," John raised his eyebrows. "Make sure to get a parenting test on any future offspring you have together."

The atmosphere changed considerably. People grew tense. Everyone knew about Maggie though no one said it, at least they didn't say it to John. General was staring at him in disbelief. John couldn't believe it himself. They were all acting like they'd never talked shit about her before in their lives.

"Hey!" Dice raised his finger threateningly. "Easy there, kid! Watch the mouth…" he took a drag from his cigarette as he glared at John. "If you weren't Maggie's kid brother I'd sock you for that."

"Go right ahead but you know I'm right," retorted John as Claire's eyes flew wide open. She was staring at him, pleading with him to back down the same way she did that time with Dick. John ignored her.

Dice didn't move. He only frowned and glared, probably trying to detach the kid he once knew from the angry teen before him. John however had no such problem. Only an idiot would date one of his sisters.

"…Maggie's right, you _have_ turned into a little prick," he said eventually. "Christ kid! That's your own sister you're talking about."

"Don't I know?"

The man shook his head in disbelief. "You don't talk about her that way around me, got me? You do that again and I _will_ hit you and I don't give a damn if you're her brother. No one talks about my girl that way."

That made him stop, John straightened up, furious. "Personally, I don't see how it is any of your fucking business what way I talk about her. She's my sister."

"She's your sister, that's the point," Dice was staring at him like he was trying to explain multiple sums to a three year old. "We all come from women at the end of the day, right?" he turned to the spectators. "Right? Am I right? You gotta show the women in your life a little respect-"

"Is 'respect' the term Maggie's using for alimony these days?" John interjected. "I'd thought she'd just stick to bills, same as other whores."

The tension snapped. Dice jumped up from his chair, the stool clattered on the floor behind him. John stood his ground, mentally doing the calculations as to whether or not he'd be able to take him. Claire, poor Claire looked fucking terrified and he felt bad but if Dice wanted a fight then that was it. John hated fist fights; the outcome was too unpredictable. Words were always where he had the edge.

"Easy there, Dice Man," General soothed Dice as he picked up his stool and set him back on it with a firm push of the shoulders. "Not in front of his girl. I'll make sure to whip his ass in this here game for you."

The word 'girl' resonated somewhere deep inside Dice's thick skull. Dice turned to Claire who was watching him worriedly, scooting away from him. He stopped and pulled the cigarette out from between his lips, giving her the once over. He looked from Claire to John and then back again.

"You're Johnny Boy's girl?" he asked her eventually.

"I am his girlfriend, yes," Claire replied politely.

"Lord Almighty…" he replaced the cigarette. "What's a brod like you doing with a punk like him?"

She shrugged. "I must like him, I guess?" As she said it her eyes caught John's. He couldn't fight back the smile even if he tried. She smiled too.

"You're about the only person who does," muttered Dice with raised eyebrows. There were a few laughs and the mood became jovial once more. "So what's your name, Red?"

"Claire."

"Claire? That's a pretty name for a pretty girl."

"Why thank you," Claire grinned at John victoriously. "I've been told that it's a fat girl's name."

"By who? _Him?"_ Dice gestured to John as he prepared to take his first shot. "He's a prick. Don't listen to what he says ─Don't let him speak to you like that neither," he added. He took one last long stare at John before shaking his head. " _Prick."_

John grinned. Prick or not, he eventually beat General, just like he knew he would although it took mostly skill. Hustling only worked on suckers, and although General was a loser, he wasn't a sucker but he did miss a few of John's feints. Afterwards, when he handed over the money, John split it in half and handed one back to the man. Out of the corner of his eye he could see both Dice and Claire's dumbfounded expressions. Oh how he lived to disappoint peoples' expectations.

"I'm serious about the parenting test," he said to Dice as he took Claire by the hand and led her back towards their table.

"Hey Johnny Boy!" Dice called after him after a moment. "You and your lady should head down to Cats some time. I work the door, I'll let you in."

"Course you work there," John called back. "Cats is for faggots."

"You're a prick!"

John gave him the middle finger.

"Why do you always have to pick a fight?" Claire demanded once they were alone. She was still half pissed at him and frightened for him.

John sighed. "Look, it was fine. It was just for show. Guys do it all the time. It's fucking posturing that's all."

"It is beyond a doubt the stupidest thing ever."

John couldn't argue there. It was pretty fucking stupid but it worked. It was the main reason he'd been able to avoid getting into fights most of the time. Look bigger, sound badder and the other dick would usually back down. Claire leaned back against the pool table beside him, her arms folded.

"I was worried," she said. "Like really worried."

He hooked an arm over her shoulder and placed her head against his chest. "I'm fine, relax. Nothing happened."

"I just hate to think something would."

And it meant a lot to him her saying that. No one had ever said it before. John rubbed his hand over her arm.

"At one point I thought you were going to lose," she peered up at him. "It looked like it. You missed like three shots in a row."

"Smoke and mirrors," John replied. "I'm surprised he didn't notice. Guess his brain went out with his hair."

A small smile found its way back to her face. John was relieved. "So you did hustle him," she said.

"Can't hustle a hustler."

Claire pursed her lips together and untangled herself from him. "Show me."  
That surprised him, more so than her pirouette. " _You_ want to learn?"

"Why not?"

"Nothing… just most girls aren't normally interested."

"And have you ever asked a girl if she was interested before?"

"Never had to," replied John smoothly.

Claire rolled her eyes. " _Ha ha_. C'mon, show me and I swear I won't ask you any awkward questions about your sister."

"Deal," he grunted, picking up the cue.

He dropped her home at two, after they'd smoked all his cigarettes and grabbed a coffee at the local 24 hour diner to help sober her up. They'd sat tucked in together in a booth at the back, his fingers trailing the nape of her neck, kisses coming quick and sloppy and tasting of beer and cheap instant coffee. They'd talked about dancing and hustling and what they were going to do with the money John won that night come their next date on Thursday. They didn't talk about Maggie or Dice although John could tell that she desperately wanted to ask. He knew that someday not asking wasn't going to be enough for her, just like someday sitting in booths sharing hurried kisses wasn't going to be enough for him but in that moment, they were both fine with making do.

 _To be continued…_

A/N: Anyone who is familiar with the actor/comic who played Dice Man in Pretty in Pink will know that he has been the subject of great controversy due to his sexist humour. I appreciate a little irony, don't you?


	4. Chapter 4

'Youth Novels'

Chapter Four

John woke up to the sound of footsteps thundering up the stairs. Blearily blinking his eyes open, he searched the wall of faded flowery wallpaper above the twins' bunk for the old Mickey Mouse clock Eddie had scavenged from a skip. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet. He pulled his yellow quilted blanket up over his ears and shivered into it, cursing the cold and damp spring air as it settled into his skin and bones. A voice in his head reminded him that he had to get up; that he had promised to pick up Brian today. Screw Brian, his sleep deprived brain rebelled and he closed his eyes once more, intent on dreaming of red hair and full lips and the creative things a girl who could apply her lipstick with her cleavage might do.

They didn't stay closed for long. Reinette made sure of it. She came barging in like a tornado, the door banged and rattled away from the wall behind her. John watched from underneath his covers. She was dressed for work in her turquoise and white waitress uniform, curlers hanging from her mane of cheaply dyed black hair and a long thin cigarette was smoking between her red lips. Reinette had decided sometime back in the '50s that she looked like Elizabeth Taylor and thus styled herself appropriately. Unfortunately, no one had ever told her that she looked more like an African Gnu─ a Gnu which smoked and had its face backed over by a JCB.

She headed straight for the pile of last night's clothes lying on the floor by the wash basket, just like John knew she would. Her quick bony hands rummaged through his pockets, pulling out his cigarette packet and matches, his van keys and tossing them on the floor. John said nothing. Experience had taught him never to leave anything important where she might find it, not even his switch blade.

"Where is it?!" She demanded eventually, turning with dark flashing eyes.

John decided to play dumb. "What?"

"The money!"

He lifted his head slightly from his pillow. "Money?"

"I _heard_ you coming in, Johnny!" She yanked the pillow out from under his head as he went to lay back down on it. "Hand it over!"

"Hand over _what_ money exactly?"

"Do you think I'm stupid?!" her voice dropped to a low whisper when the sound of mattress springs squeaked and shifted beneath the weight of a body in the next room.

John stared back at her, nonplussed. "Do you really need me to answer that question?"

She whacked him hard across the face with the pillow. Ignoring his stinging nose, John snatched the pillow from her hand and fluffed it up, placing it behind him. She grabbed it again seconds before his head landed.

"I'm using that!" At her stony expression, John let out a sigh. "I don't have any money."

"Cut the bull crap. I know you were out shooting pool last night," she hissed.

"I wasn't," he lied. "I was on a date." A grin formed at the memory of Claire's arms around his neck, her dark eyes sparkling into his like diamonds in a coal mine. It had really happened.

"Until half two in the morning?" Reinette asked suspiciously.

John's grin widened. "It was a good date."

His mother regarded him shrewdly, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes knotting like tree roots beneath her pencilled on eyebrows. John knew what she'd say if she knew he'd been out with a girl like Claire. She'd tell him to wake up and stop dreaming. When she found no obvious trace of the lie in his face, Reinette flung the pillow on Derek's old bed. It missed and bounced to the ratty green carpet with a thump. John stared at it forlornly.

"Well, that's just great news, Romeo!" she spat, every word dripping with sarcasm. "I'm fucking delighted for you that your love life is thriving! Meanwhile, the heating bill's come in and the washing machine's broken down again. I need forty-five to give the repair man tomorrow. Eighty three for the heating by Friday, and Senior's gotta get another scan-"

He sat up, good mood ruined. "Thanks for the heads up, I suppose," he glared. "Next time how about telling me a week before all this shit is _due?!"_

"You're never here and when you are there's no speaking to you. If you don't like it come and talk to me. I ain't got time to be chasing you around."

"Because that would _involve_ talking to you."

She planted her hands on her hips, drawing herself up like a vulture preparing to swoop. "Well, you live here so tough shit."

"Don't remind me."

Reinette's face tightened and John knew he'd stuck it in good. It was always a fight between the two of them, always, always, _always._ Reinette said it was because John had her mouth and Senior's brain. John would always reply that at least he had a brain. Whatever hurt he had caused was quickly absorbed into her iron skin and filed away for future reference, never to be forgotten. Hurt turned to contempt. For a long moment, she simply stared down at him, looking at him like he was the most disgusting thing in the world.

" _What?!"_ he demanded eventually.

"What are you even good for?"

It cut, just like it always did, just like she knew it would. Her words were like splinters, they got under the skin and infected it, turning it green and yellow and black with rot. John kept his face impassive as she turned to leave.

" _Bitch_."

She stopped at the door, her back to him. "And you're the son of one."

Once she was gone, John let out a long sigh and pulled off his blankets. There was nothing for it; he'd have to get up. Thinking back over what Claire had said, about knowing how bad it could be made him laugh. How on earth had he agreed with her? She had no fucking clue; she didn't know how good she had it. Girls like her had it made in comparison. They'd never know what it was like to actually have the hated inside their flesh, taking up room, eating them alive.

He placed the old wooden chair beneath the handle of door to hold it closed, checking the handle twice just in case. Once satisfied that it couldn't be moved, John went to the window, kneeling down he began to roll back the carpet to reveal the old whitewash floorboards underneath. He lifted one and reached inside to take out his weed, wallet and blade. It wasn't his main hiding place, floorboards were too obvious. He kept the really important stuff in a safety deposit box downtown, the key to which was taped to one of the bottom planks of his bed. Experience had taught him forty bucks a year was a small price to pay for his future.

After he returned the room to normal, he got dressed and placed his belongings back in their respective pockets. The door to his parents' bedroom was ajar when he passed it on his way to the stairs. John glanced inside; even in the blue black of morning he could make out that the bed's sole inhabitant was still asleep, mostly likely KO'd from yet another cocktail of Valium tablets and Corbin's Bowl Happy Hour Specials.

Reinette was waiting in the kitchen at the grey flaking enamel table, in her usual seat the one closest to the window. In front of her smoked an ashtray and a small vanity mirror stood propped up against the telephone book, her make up lined out in a neat row before it. She picked up her cigarette and turned fully to face him as he walked in.

"I need that money, Johnny. I needed it yesterday so you're getting it to me by tomorrow."

"Okay, please hold a moment while I clap my hands together and it will magically appear-" He clapped his hands together before holding out his empty palms to her. "Oh, I'm sorry," he drawled. "Must be running low on pixie dust-" He didn't bother checking the fridge, all there ever was in there was beer and maybe a watered down bottle of milk. "Food?" he asked.

"In the casserole dish."

John grunted and picked up the green dish in question. It was Mac 'n' Cheese for breakfast, the same as it had been for breakfast and dinner over the past three days. John was highly doubtful that the cheap mix Reinette got from the supermarket actual contained any real cheese, dried or not. Still, it filled a hole. He grabbed a spoon from the drying rack and tucked in.

"Johnny, I'm not messing around," Reinette warned. "If you wanna live here, you gotta contribute."

John forced the watery mixture down his throat. He hated the way she said it, as though he had some place else to go─ as though he had a choice about living there with her, with _him_. So he wasn't going to make it easy for her. He'd be damned if he did. Part of him knew that he was being unnecessarily difficult but it was hard not to be when you hated your entire family.

"I've got school," he shrugged. "What do you expect me to do?"

"Fucking man up and pull your weight for once, you lazy little shit!"

John clenched his jaw together. "You should go to the doctor and get yourself checked for senile dementia because I clearly remember giving you eighty bucks last week."

"Good for you, I'll make sure to give you a gold star," she retorted in a deadpan snark. "Now go out and get more. I need at least three hundred."

John nearly dropped the dish in disbelief. Shaking his head, he let out a long hollow laugh. "Pull the other one cause that's never gonna happen in one night," he told her.

But Reinette would not be deterred. "Heating, your Dad's CAT scan and the washing machine," she listed off each bill with an acrylic nail. "If you're anywhere near as good as you like to say you are then you'll be able to do it."

She'd got him and she knew it. John glowered at the smug smile as it spread across on her face. Now he really had no choice.

"Besides," she settled back into her chair with a self-satisfied air. "I ain't asking you to do it in one night. I've called you in sick."

Christ, she really was desperate. Normally she just took whatever John gave her and then bitched for more a few days later. For a second, he idly toyed with the idea of giving her the money from his personal stash. The thought passed as quickly as it had come. That would've been the decent thing to do and they sure as hell didn't deserve it. If he did something like that, he'd never get away.

"How'd he fuck it up this time?" he asked. She'd won and both of them knew it. "Bowling?"

Shaking her head, Reinette took a drag from her cigarette, the ash falling in clumps onto the table. "Bowling made it worse. He pulled it giving you that thrashing on Saturday. ─What's so funny?" she demanded as John doubled over with laughter.

He quickly recovered, grinning happily to himself. God, he lived for those moments. "Poetic justice, Reinette," he informed her. "Or fucking irony, take your pick."

"You can call it whatever you want," she replied with an arched eyebrow. " _You're_ paying for it. The painkillers and everything is coming outta you this time around."

That put a significant damper on everything. "So much for a silver lining to the shit storm," he muttered to himself.

"It's your own damn fault for getting hit, Johnny," she began to pulled the curlers from her hair and brush the kinks into waves with a flat brush. " _Eight_ detentions? What are you like?"

John didn't answer at first. He finished the rest of his breakfast, tossed the empty dish and dirty spoon in the sink to add to the other mountain of dishes. He smiled grimly at them. Senior was gonna flip at her for not doing them.

"I'll bear that comment in mind the next time he gives you a black eye," he told her before walking out the back door to his van.

He picked up Duncan first and gave him a dead arm for shouting Jehovah the second he got in the van. Brian came next and lastly Garth, who they found waiting out of consideration for them all at the very end of the street, furthest away from his house. They were an odd mix, made odder by Brian's nervous babble about Star Wars. Eventually Garth did them all a favour and handed him a joint.

"Right ladies," John said, stopping the van a block away from Shermer High. "You're on your own."

"You're not coming to school?" Even slightly high Brian sounded dumbfounded, as though such a thing was completely inconceivable to him. It probably was.

He shook his head. "Gotta hustle together some cash. The old hag's on my case again-" then he smirked. "-Senior put his back out when he hit me on Saturday. Just desserts are one hell of a treat I'm tellin' you."

Duncan giggled like a little girl, weed always made him slightly effeminate for some reason. "What a fucking dumbass!"

"What a _prick_ ," John corrected him. "You're a dumbass."

The boy flipped him a lazy bird as he giggled and toked, eyes blinking from the thin white smoke curling into them. He looked like a pug with his face all screwed up like that.

"Is he like…?" Garth fumbled for the words as his eyes slipped out of focus. "Can he move?"

John sighed. "I believe he still can. Better luck next time, I guess."

Duncan giggles gave way to uproarious laughter. He wheezed and choked like he was heaving up a lung. John plucked the joint from between his fingers and pulled a drag. The heat burned his lips and throat like he was swallowing embers whole. Slowly the much needed haze began to settle in. He had his work cut out for him, Reinette might as well have been asking for the goddamn moon.

"Course," he said after a moment. "Then she told me that I gotta pay the hospital bills." He took another toke and passed it to Garth. "They make me work off all the teeth he busts, you know that?"

Duncan's laughter trickled off. An awkward silence settled in the van. Neither Duncan's folks nor Garth's Mom had much money but at least they didn't expect their children to foot the bill. They didn't hit their kids either. Brian, well Brian's parents were the fucking pseudo-intellectual Stage parent version of the Brady Bunch.

The nerd looked at him, worried. "Has he not got insurance?"

John scoffed. Brady Bunch Brian _indeed_. "Of course not, dumbass that costs money…" He paused. "If you see Claire tell her I'll be in tomorrow."

Duncan let out a whipping noise and John punched him in the arm again, harder this time.

The three of them finished the joint and filed out of the van. Brian lingered behind by the passenger door's open window.

"Are you gonna be alright?" he asked.

John stared at him. "Course. Unlike you, I don't need my Mom to cut my crusts off my sandwiches."

Brian rolled his red eyes. "I mean… you're not gonna do anything _illegal_? Right?!"

He rolled his tongue over his teeth and sucked in a deep breath. Hustling wasn't illegal just risky. People tended to turn mean when they were losing money or whenever John let his mouth run away from him, and then there was the risk of losing a game. Still, he had to play big if he wanted to win big, that was the aim of the game.

He flashed Brian a grin in reply and pulled away from the curb, leaving the boy to the tender mercies of his imagination.

A/N: Quite a short chapter but I want to keep the ones with John's family interactions separate from everything else. You'll understand why as we go along. Next chapter return to Allison and Claire. Also, thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, feedback is always greatly appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

Youth Novels

Chapter Five

Brian was worried.

Granted, he was usually worried. There was always something nagging at the back of his overworked brain. Most of the time, his worries and fears were allotted to school and the weight of his parents expectations. Sometimes, they lingered on other things that didn't bear thinking off and as of recently the sometimes had become the constant. Alongside the nagging voice now spoke a darker negative entity. It was a logical thing that whispered in a manner his parents had never quite managed. It made Brian listen to it that way; otherwise he'd never have taken the flare gun from his Dad's fishing boat in the first place.

After Saturday, he'd become determined to drown it out through music and work and conversation but still it held on, whispering. Tuesday morning was the first time he'd had silence in a week, and yet he couldn't enjoy the silence. He could not linger on the light weed induced buzz in his brain or the way his fingertips felt like leaden weights. He bumbled along the sidewalk behind Duncan and Garth, thoughts growing more and more paranoid. Brian was worried, he was really worried. What on earth had Bender gotten himself into this time?

"Garth?" he said, settling for who he thought was the more sensible of the operation (if indeed such a thing were possible). "What's Bender doing?"

The boy turned a glazed hazel eye his way, a knot of thought forming between his brows. "Wha' now?"

"Bender," Brian repeated patiently. "Why does he need to get money together?" _'How's he doing it?_ '

"You heard him," said Duncan, hitting a bush violently with a stick. Damaged leaves rustled through the air."Hospital bills for his Dad."

"Doesn't his Dad work?"

"Nope. Hasn't worked in five years. A truck went into the side of his when he was backing out of a truck stop, totally screwed his back up."

Brian thought about it for a moment. "…Is that why," he began carefully. "His Dad is…you _know_ …like he is?"

Duncan glanced over his shoulder, considering him. "…No," he said eventually. "His Dad's always been like that. He's a bit worse now cause of the pain," he conceded. "And Bender sure likes to piss him off." There was a thwack as Duncan hit an overhanging branch. A bird squawked into flight overhead and the boy laughed.

To Brian, that made sense oddly enough. John had made it pretty clear from his depiction of his family life that he ran his mouth at his parents in the exact same way he ran it at everyone else. If only he could be so brave.

"How's he getting the money?" he asked curiously.

Duncan shrugged. "The same way he always does."

"Drugs?"

The skinhead grinned an irritating grin. "Sometimes."

"What about today?"

As Duncan opened his mouth to give what was likely to be another evasive reply, Garth cut across him.

"Dude, you know it's bad karma to talk about other people's business without their permission," Garth fixed him with what might have been an admonishing look if he hadn't been so stone. "If you wanna know so badly, ask Bender."

Brian nodded, feeling both a little ashamed and left out. He wasn't really one of them, even if he did get a ride with Bender the same as them. They'd only started speaking with him as of yesterday so they owed him no such information. To save face, he searched for an excuse.

"Sorry, it's just Claire's going to ask questions," he mumbled. "He told me to tell her he wasn't coming in."

"Let her ask him then," Garth shrugged. "It's not your problem. Just enjoy the high-" And he spread out his hands out to worship the grey March sky like a greasy Jim Morrison.

"So how'd a milk and cookies kid like you end up serving the old nine with Bender?" Duncan asked abruptly.

The question took him by surprise. Brian swallowed. He should've been expecting it sooner or later. But how to answer it?

"Forget to do your homework?" ribbed the boy at his silence.

"My locker…" he hesitated. His eyes dropped. Could he lie? He was awful at lying. "I…"

"Left your homework in your locker?" tutted Duncan with a grin.

There was a smack. Brian jumped in surprise.

"The fuck?!" Duncan rubbed the back of his head and glared angrily at Garth. "Are you looking to get your head kicked in?!"  
But Garth lifted the joint from his lips and stuck it in between the fuming punk's ones. "Chill, Dee, it was just a slap," He turned to Brian. "Was that was your locker that blew up? I heard some science project exploded."

Brian regarded him cautiously, unsure of what to think. Was Garth was giving him a way out? Had Bender told Garth what happened and now he was taking pity on him? Brian swallowed. Even _that_ seemed beneath Bender. He was the type of guy who preferred to humiliate people when they were still within earshot.

"Yeah," Brian took the lifeline, whatever it was. "It's was pretty embarrassing."

The boy nodded, cracked his knuckles with his thumb and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "These things happen. No need to be embarrassed."

And with that, Garth headed on ahead of them, sauntering along the sidewalk. Brian could only stare after him in dumb appreciation. Despite all odds and rumours to the contrary, Garth Volbeck appeared to be a pretty decent guy. So he hurried his feet to catch up when Duncan began chasing after the boy with a half-drunk can of coke he'd found abandoned on the side walk.

At school, once they'd all gone their separate ways, Brian's worries began to resurface. By third period, the drug haze had lifted and Brian was back to the negative entity and his schoolwork and the pressures that his parents piled on him. He needed to talk to Claire. He knew like everyone else in the school knew where she and her friends hung out during lunch but the thought of approaching her then, as she sat in the centre holding court was too daunting even for him. They'd laugh at him, he knew that; Claire had told him as much. She'd also told him that she'd laugh too.

So he waited near where he knew her locker to be at the end of lunch. One of her friends, Amanda Jones was with her. Brian didn't know much about her but he knew enough to know she wasn't as bad as Caroline Mulford or Shayne Shrewsbury. Larry Lester had tutored her in algebra one time. He said she was nice.

"Claire?" he asked as he approached.

She turned suddenly. "Brian?" Her eyes widened. Even in her surprise, she looked tired. There were dark rings hiding beneath her makeup around her eyes. Brian didn't let the silence linger long enough to gage the level of her embarrassment at being seen speaking to him.

"Em, John-" he said hurriedly, least she sneer and turn him away. "He asked me to tell you something."

Claire led him out of earshot of her friend. "What?" she demanded. "Is he hurt?"

"No, he's-he's not in today."

"I gathered that," she replied, somewhat annoyed. "His van wasn't in the parking lot this morning."

"He told me to tell you that he'd be in tomorrow. He gave me a lift in with Duncan and Garth this morning."

" _And?_ Is that it?"

Brian frowned at the coolness of her tone. So she was back to her usual icy self. Claire adjusted her purse on her shoulder, waiting.

"Brian, is there anything else because I need to get-"

"He said something about needing to-" he glanced around for any listeners as he dropped his voice to a whisper. "… _hustle_ together some cash."

Claire froze. "Oh."

"And Duncan and Garth won't tell me how he's doing it. It's not… _you know_ … grass. It's something else."

" _Oh_!" her eyes lit up in sudden realisation. "That fucker, he's gone to play pool!" Then she turned his anger on him. "God, Brian! You like totally nearly gave me a heart attack."

He blinked in confusion. "Pool?"

"He pool hustles."

Suddenly Duncan's grin made sense. "Is that even legal?"

"I think so," She looked a bit worried. "I mean, it's skill not outright cheating, right? I've never heard of anybody being arrested for it."  
"Bender could probably manage to be arrested for doing just about anything."

Her dark eyes narrowed. "He's not that bad, Brian. You of all people should know that," she reprimanded him sharply.

Brian's cheeks burned with shame for the second time that day. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying…" He stopped and sighed. He didn't know what he was saying. "So he's not in trouble then?"

Claire nibbled on her bottom lip. "As long as he doesn't start a fight, I guess. He nearly started a fight last night at a pool hall while we were out on a date."

"Sounds romantic." When Claire's eyes narrowed, Brian shifted awkwardly. "I meant him starting a fight. It was a joke."

"Yeah, I got it," she replied flatly. Then her expression softened. "… You're okay other than that?"

"Yeah, um, I-I'm better all things considered, thanks to Saturday."

Claire smiled. "Saturday was good. Well, see you around. Thanks for letting me know about John."

And with that she was off down the corridor with her friend. Brian stood for a moment afterwards. Claire and he were never really going to be friends; not on their own anyway. Their dynamic didn't work unless everyone was there.

Mr O'Neill's call to hurry to class shook him from his reverie. He sucked in a deep breath and reminded himself that he still needed to ace the rest of the semester. He spun around and walked in the direction of Shop as the second bell went.

* * *

The bell tinkled lightly as the door clicked closed behind her with a soft thump. Allison breathed in the familiar scent of freshly pressed vinyl and cardboard and quickly hurried to the punk section at the back, head down, least she be asked if she was looking for anything by the shop assistant and her tomboyish friend in a fisherman's cap by the counter.

It was half six on a Tuesday night and TRAX was deserted, even the kid who usually loitered by the tapes trying to pinch one wasn't there. Allison preferred it that way. Her upper lip curled as she ran her fingers over the sleeves one by one, flipping them forward until she reached the final one in the shelf. She didn't read album reviews, didn't listen to the radio: Allison picked her music by album sleeve. She liked to go through them all individually and try to imagine from the artwork and the feel of the song tracks what sort of sound of music inside made. And if she liked her deductions well enough, she'd buy it.

Of course, even she wasn't immune to influence: it was the very thing that had brought her to the record store that evening. In her hand she clasped the hastily scrawled recommendations Duncan had given her. It felt nice to have a friend to recommend things. So Allison hummed along to Morrissey's crooning voice in the background as she made head way into punk section. Every now and then, her eyes would wander towards the red headed shop assistant, engrossed in what looked to be schoolwork while her tomboyish friend busy slapped out beats on her thighs and every other available surface with a pair of drumsticks.

She knew them, or more correctly, she knew them to see. The red head in her flowers and lace was in her art class and the drummer girl was a regular fixture at Keith Nelson's side. Allison had never spoken to either of them; she'd never learned their names. Neither girl had noticed when she'd come in, absorbed as they were in their conversation and Allison had said nothing because she didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to talk to someone to make them like her. It had been easy on Saturday when she'd never intended to make anyone like her at all. She'd only gone in order not to be alone. Taking a gambling, she moved towards the end of the album shelf, closest to them and hoped that perhaps they might look up and take notice of her.

They didn't.

"You going to the Rave-Ups on Thursday?" She heard the Drummer girl ask as she tapped along to the beat of _Pretty Girls make Graves_.

Her companion shrugged, noncommittedly and wrote something down on the pad in front of her. "Maybe after I finish my algebra homework."

"I thought you were big into them."

"I am, it's just I have work."

"You're always working."

"GPAs don't maintain themselves."

"…Keith says he'll probably go," said Drummer girl, and suddenly she grew agitated. "If he can manage to remember something other than A- _man_ -da Jones for five seconds… l don't get it. All she's done is won the genetic lottery."

The red head didn't take her eyes off her work. "Maybe she's nice as well as beautiful?"

"That's an oxymoron-" Drummer girl tossed the drumstick in the air. "-Beautiful people aren't nice, they've got no reason to be-" She caught it and drummed up a furiously paced beat. She looked furious too, her thin upper lip curled in an ugly frown which Allison highly doubted was from concentration. The red head didn't seem to notice, or maybe she did but she no longer cared. "-I just can't believe that my best friend, the guy I've known my whole life has gone and fallen for a pair of long legs and a concept just like every other douchebag in our grade. I always thought he was above all that bullshittery."

"Puberty makes fools of us all," drawled the red head, still not bothering to look up.

"Yeah, no kidding..."

That finally got her friend's attention. She raised her brown eyes and put down her pen. "Did you guys fight?"

Drummer girl's shoulders fell and deflated like a balloon. "I just can't be around him when he's like this. He's all loved up over a big fat nothing."

"You don't know that. He hasn't even asked her out yet."

" _Exactly_. She's going to say 'no' and then _he's_ going to get all depressed and then _I'm_ going to be the one stuck dealing with his tortured soul for the remainder of High School."

"…Or _maybe_ she'll like him and say 'yes'?"

"Girls like Amanda Jones don't say 'yes' for anything less than American Express."

"That's funny because she lives on the same street as me and Keith. Her Dad's a plumber."

"And she's already dating Hardy Jennings."

"For as long as that lasts. Everyone knows he treats her like shit."

"Some girls are prepared to sell their dignity for a meal ticket to the high life. Amanda Jones is one of them."

Andie rolled her eyes but Allison couldn't help but feel that perhaps the blonde girl was correct. Amanda Jones, pretty and sweet with big brown eyes and long legs, was one of Claire's friends, and from what Claire had said about her friends, they weren't particularly nice people. But then again, Claire had proved herself to be far more complexed than the shallow girl they'd all taken her for on Saturday morning.

She dropped her eyes again as Drummer girl looked around, twitching for something to do. Allison smiled a little, thinking of Andrew and then of John. Neither of them could sit still if their lives depended on it. Andrew was more contained however. She liked the neatness there was about him. She liked his eyes too and she liked the salty taste of sports drink that always lingered on her lips every time they kissed.

Drummer girl drummed her sticks again and when that didn't work for her, she snatched the open textbook from the counter and began flicking through the pages.

"Can you believe the shit they make us learn?" she asked her friend. "Like this here; chemical equilibrium? When am I ever going to use that?"

"Maybe you won't use it but someone else will, Watts." The girl yanked her book from her and placed it back down.

"I don't see why I should have to suffer for their education. Andie, newsflash, graduation isn't until next year. You can afford to take a night off."

"Em, I'm _working?_ " she gestured to the deserted store.

"And creating more work for yourself by studying."  
"Like I said, GPAs don't maintain themselves. Besides, no one's here."

Allison wondered if the red head, 'Andie' really hadn't noticed her presence or if she was just talking about the general emptiness of the shop that evening. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd been overlooked. Still it hurt. What made it worse was that she desperately wanted to be noticed. Had she tried, Allison knew she could be noticed but it would've been in a weird way, the wrong way. She didn't want to be weird anymore. Weird people didn't have any friends.

"Where's Duckie?" she heard Watts ask abruptly. "Normally he'd be sniffing around you like a mastiff by now."

"He'll be here soon…" then Andie let out a frustrated sigh, her nose screwing up beneath her oversized reading glasses. "He's flunking European History."

"So am I... _I think_?"

Andie shook her head in disbelief. "Don't either of you guys wanna finish high school and be done with this shithole?"

"Andie, all I want to do in life is play the drums. I don't need a high school diploma for that. And all Duckie wants to do is hang off you for all eternity."

"Well, I don't plan on hanging around."

"Tell him that."

"I have!" she frowned. "…I don't know what is wrong with him."

"I can maybe think of a few things," replied Watts cryptically.

"So can the whole world."

There was a pregnant pause. "…At least you can always rely on him to be around. Keith seems to be permanently on planet Amanda Jones these days."

"Well, so are you," replied Andie. "All you've talked about since you came in here is Amanda Jones."

"I have not."  
"Um," the girl pretended to think about it. " _You have_."

"Then that's only because he's so bad he's infected me too," said the girl pointedly. "She's like Aids."

"Maybe he could have a shot? I mean Claire Standish and Bender are together. Who saw that one coming?"

Allison nearly dropped the albums in surprise. Now they were talking about people she knew, people she _really_ knew, not just names and faces. It shouldn't have surprised her though. Everyone talked about Claire; she was the diamond girl of Shermer High. Bender was talked about too, but for very different reasons.

"The denizens of hell?" replied her friend. "I reckon Princess Diana is only dating him so that he'll beat the crap out of anyone who goes up against her for Prom Queen."

As Andie laughed, Allison frowned and slipped a copy of The Slit's Cut onto her ever growing pile. She should say something, she decided. John and Claire were her friends after all, and they weren't entirely bad people when you got to know them. As she began to approach the counter with her intent in mind, the door opened with a tinkling sound. In walked Duckie, the boy who talked too much and too fast and Allison knew she had missed her chance.

"So ladies, will you or will you not both be present for the Rave-Ups this Thursday?" He moved like a slightly stouter Mick Jagger, his creepers sliding across the floor as he went.

Watts stared at him incredulously. "Will you even get in?"

"He never gets in," interjected Andie.

"I will have you know that me and the Dice Man are tight these days!" he waved a finger at them. "He'll let me in… this time… _probably_ ," he put his hands on his hips and cocked his head to the side doubtfully. "We'll talk."

"Don't sound so confident, Duckie," teased Watts as she worked up a rhythm on her thighs. Then she caught sight of Allison before turning to Andie. "Customer."

Andie shooed her off the counter. There was no hint of recognition in her eyes. Allison's stomach sank. As the girl went through each album, ringing the price up in the till, Allison felt the overwhelming urge abandon ship. She was still nondescript, an invisible entity floating along in the void that no one ever noticed. No matter what way she wore her hair or how bright her clothes were, she'd always be invisible. Suddenly, she was all too aware of how ill fitted the headband was on her, of how blue Andrew's sweater was. No matter how hard she tried, she could not make herself be noticed. The weird always found a way to cover it. She gritted her teeth together nervously.

"Hold on-" Allison turned her head. Duckie was standing very close to her, eyes peering over his the top of round rimmed sunglasses into hers, an arm propped upon the sticker covered countertop. "-Are you or are you not the very same girl who stuck a sanitary pad to Bender's sunglasses in art class this morning?"

Interest was raised. Andie was smiling a little. Watts was giving her an approving once over.

"I also took the lock for his locker," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "And his knife."

Drummer girl turned to regard her. "And you're still alive?"

"I-I," her mouth was running away from her. "I can do whatever I want to Bender and he won't get mad. He's my friend."

Eyes narrowed, there was a look exchanged. Watts tossed her drumstick in the air and caught it again. "You're _friends_ with that asshole?"

She made it sound like she had the plague.

"Oh," Duckie sounded disappointed, annoyed even. He leaned back against the counter with a sigh. "Then I guess I should hold the handshake."

" _Duckie!"_ hissed Andie, appalled.

But Allison understood too well. They didn't like Bender, and by extension, they wouldn't like her either. She paid for her albums without a further word, and left the store. It was only later that she kicked herself for not saying something. For not telling them that whatever their beef was with Bender, it had nothing to do with her.

A/N: It's been a while, I've been very busy. Away, if so inclined drop a review or a message on your thoughts so far. Feedback is the only way I can write better. Yes, I will go back over it again and grammar check over the next coming days. I find half the time I only find the mistakes after I've uploaded.

Thanks for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

"Youth Novels"

Chapter Six

Claire crossed the pink ribbons around her ankles three times and tightened the ends into matching bows. She bowed forward over her legs, exhaling deeply as she felt the pull of her hamstrings and the relentless push of the arch against her foot. The room was still with night. Above her, the large crystal chandeliers cast sunspots on the wood panel floor and will-o'-the-wisps in the glass and darkness of the French doors.

There was still magic in the old ballroom.

Claire closed her eyes. The house breathed. With every creaking step of her foot, she could hear the echoes of phantom dancers swaying across the floor. It was years since her parents had last held a party in the ballroom and perhaps the real time for parties was in the distant past, back before television and radio, when dancing and talking and watching had been confined to the party and not encumbered by outside influences. Parties were a dime a dozen these days. Not a week at Shermer High went by without there being word of a party at Stubby's or Steff's or Jake's. Claire was always invited to them, and she usually showed up because that was what was expected of her. They weren't real parties though, just a gaggle of teenagers drunkenly pawing at one another. None of them held the same elegance she had once seen trotted out beneath the diamond lights of the old ballroom. How beautifully the dresses had once glittered against the gold gilled cream walls and mirrored panels all around her.

' _You got everything, and I got shit. Fuckin' Rapunzel, right? School would probably fuckin' shut down if you didn't show up. Queenie isn't here…'_ Claire screwed her eyes shut tighter. His words still hurt but what hurt even more was that she could say nothing to defend herself. All her faults and vanities now weighed heavier than they did before.

He would never apologise. She never expected him to either. It wasn't John's style, apologising would be too much like letting on that he cared. Besides, she liked his belligerence, the fact that he was bad news. He fascinated her; infuriated her and worst of all, he tempted her into feeling more─ that was the part she had not been expecting. He'd been sweet on Monday. He'd liked her dancing, even if he'd almost ruined it all by getting into an argument.

"Claire, what are you doing? It's twelve at night. I thought you said you were going to bed early?"

Her mother was standing in the doorway, her eyes narrowed against the light and the consequences of her heavy drinking the night before. They had the same face, Claire hated that. She'd once considered her mother one of the most beautiful women she knew; now it was like watching her own self wither away in self-loathing.

"I couldn't sleep."

Sylvia crossed the room, gathering the ends of her nightgown ties to her and tightening them around her waist in a clumsy knot. "You'll ruin your complexion if you stay up late."

"Just fifteen minutes." But she felt wide awake as though an electric rod had replaced her spinal column and now currents of electricity were jolting out through her arms and feet in a frantic SOS. She'd needed to do something, anything because she could not say it.

Sylvia looked at her sharply. "I thought you'd given up dancing? Grandfather said you'd never make it to Juilliard with your form, remember?"

Claire bristled. She remembered all too well. ' _It's good enough_ ,' she reminded herself of what John had said. She was good enough.

"I'm thinking I might take it up again," she said casually. "For extra-curricular credit. It'll look good on my college application form."

But her mother was no longer listening. She was inspecting her reflection in one of the mirrors. Her ring fingers pulling and prodding at the puckered skin beneath her eyes with determination.

"I'm going to go to Doctor Warton again." She sighed unhappily and picked up a glass, pouring water in it from one of the mineral bottles laid out on the Georgian side table by the window. "These bags are getting unmanageable."

' _Maybe if you stopped drinking?'_ Claire thought. She'd never say it though. Sometimes she wished she could, like now when she had electricity in her veins. Sylvia settled down onto the day bed in ignorance. Even in her misery, her mother oozed luxury. The satin of her gown pooled over her thighs like water.

"If I'd gone to college I would've liked to have studied law," she told Claire for what was the millionth time. "I was the top of my class at finishing school. Did you know that?" Claire nodded obediently. "Course, your Grandfather never let me. He had certain ideas about the educated women." She sighed. "And three months after I married your father I was pregnant so of course by then it was completely out of the question."

"I'm sure Dad would've let you if you'd insisted."

Her mother snorted. "Let me let you in on a little secret, Claire. Men don't like women are smarter than them, your father included," she added bitterly. "Men need to feel like they're the ones who know better. That's why when you go to college pick something easy that doesn't require a lot of thought. That way you won't scare them off."

Claire didn't reply. She knew what her mother expected of her, what her Grandfather expected of her but Claire was not going to be that girl, not any more. She had options and the world was a wide place filled with all sorts of different people, people like John. She doubted that even in her wildest dreams her mother could ever have imagined such people existed.

Having nursed her bile, Sylvia got up, leaving her glass half empty and crossed the floor to the door.

"Fifteen minutes, Claire and then bed. You don't want bags in the morning."

As she brought her feet into First position, Claire wondered if that sort of thing mattered at all to Allison's mother.

* * *

On Wednesday afternoon, she found John and one of his friends, the Skinhead at a locker that was quite evidently neither of their own.

"What are you doing?" she asked, stopping in front of them.

A soft smirk settled on his lips at the sight of her. "Locker shopping," replied John smoothly as he handed his friend the folder he'd been poking through and pushed off the wall with his foot.

She met him halfway, ignoring the curious looks from passers-by. Their relationship was out and all over school by the time Monday had ended. Many people hadn't believed it and Benny Hanson had out rightly questioned her sanity just like Shayne had done. Claire had never liked Benny anyway.

She allowed herself to be pulled into his strong chest as his hands slipped around her waist.

"You're going to get in trouble for that," she warned.

John's eyes twinkled. "It was open when we got here."

"Already open or you opened it?"

" _Semantics_."

A nicer person would have scolded him. She however raised her hand and brushed his bangs away with her fingers to show the fading bruise. It was lesser that it had been and his sallow skin helped disguise much of it. She frowned at the thought and kept her hand in his hair. John had great hair; it was soft and long and silky, different from the way the other boys at the school kept theirs but then there was nobody quite like John, not in the school or in the entire world. No one could ever have his eyes, she was positive of that. When angered, they reflected perfect storms and yet there could be vulnerability there. She'd seen it, in the closet. The surprise, the timid question, _'Why'd you do that?'_

When he caught her lips with his, she felt it right the way down to her toes.

"How was pool?" she asked when they broke for air.

"Got the old bag off my back for about two weeks," He leaned against the lockers, pulling her with him, his hands still locked around her waist. "You should've seen one of the guys. He came in dressed like Don Corleone. Dropped thirty bucks on the first game and kept going until I cleared him out."

"What's with all the flower smelling crap girls use?" interrupted the Skinhead beside them. He was smelling a stick of deodorant. Claire wrinkled her nose when he rubbed it on his armpits. He picked up a card and laughed. "She's got a fuckin' Duran Duran fan club card. Samantha Baker, member 472," he held it up for them to see.

Claire placed her head against his shoulder as John chuckled. She could feel the rumbling all the way through to her back.

"And what is this?!" The Skinhead's face lit up with delight as he read over a neatly folded piece of paper. "It looks like our Miss Baker has a Public Sex fetish."

John snatched it from him and began to read aloud. "Have you ever touched it? _Nearly_ ," he glanced at Claire. She giggled. "If you could do it with anyone then who? Jake Ryan─ You better tell Blondie to watch out cause it looks like her boy's got a stalker on his hands-"

Claire threw her head back and laughed. It was too cruel; too easy and stupid and mean but Claire had done it herself before. Herself, Caroline and Shayne had delighted over stolen notes of various embarrassing content in the back of class. Shayne had told everyone that Kate Nox had given Steff McKee a blowjob in Blane's bathtub from a note that was meant for Robyn. They'd all laughed about it and afterwards they'd frozen Kate right out.

"-What would be your ideal setting? Bedroom─ What is it with chicks and bedrooms? _"_

"Em, comfort factor?" piped in Claire. She was beginning to feel a little bad. It really was cruel. They didn't even know the girl. "Put it back, she might see you."

But John would not be deterred. "Where is the most outrageous place you'd have sex? Lake Michigan shore." He smirked, the Skinhead laughed uproariously. "How would you answer that one, Claire?"

"Certainly not on a piece of paper or within hearing of your friends." She snatched the note from him, folded it over and went to put it back in the locker, hoping to hell that the girl wouldn't return.

"Carl must get serious kicks outta reading that shit," John went on. "He probably knows who everyone's done─ Oh, hello. Is this your locker?" he said to a person behind them.

Claire spun around immediately. A young girl, a freshman with short auburn hair and a straw trilby was eyeing the paper in Claire's hand nervously.

"It fell out. I was just putting it back in," she lied. She could kill John in that moment, and his friend. They were both grinning like the pair of dicks they were.

"So Jake Ryan, eh?" asked John.

The poor girl froze, her face went ashen white.

"Don't be an asshole!" Claire hissed at him. "Sorry, he opened it. We won't tell anyone, I swear."

Samantha looked ready to cry. She snatched the piece of paper from her hand, stuffing it in her pocket.

"Relax, kid," said John. "He's probably doesn't even know who you are."

It was the wrong thing to say. Claire could see the girl slipping into despair. There was nothing worse than knowing that your crush would never acknowledge you. Surely John understood that.

"We're not going to say anything. _Right?"_ She fixed the gloating Skinhead with a warning look.

"My lips are sealed," the boy crossed his heart.

Without a word, Samantha rushed forward, knocking her out of the way. She slammed the door closed, locking her locker once more and hurried off down the corridor, her head bowed.

"You dicks!" she smacked John's arm as they roared with laughter. "That was so mean!"

John wrapped his arms around her from behind. She fought the urge to shove him off. "Admit it, you were laughing before she came along," he reminded her.

"She's only a kid."

"Who is very careless with her property."

"You broke into her locker!"

"Prove it."

Claire bit her lip.

"And for the record," John went on. "If we were gonna be truly, and I mean well and truly fuckin' mean then we'd tell Blondie, which is something you're far more likely to do seeming as you're her friend. Correct?" He finished, putting a finger on her hypocrisy.

Claire looked at him, her face set in stone. Last week, she would've let it slip for a cheap laugh. She could see that he knew that from the satisfied curve of his lip. It made her all the more determined than ever not to say a word to Caroline.

"Why would I?" she asked haughtily. "That kid's got _no_ chance."

"Now who's the one being mean?" her boyfriend replied.

"She's a Freshman," she shot back. "The chances of that like happening are a million to one. Would you consider dating her?"

"Am I sensing a little jealousy here, Cherry?"

"As if."

"I dunno, Bender," grinned his friend, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. "If that note's anything to go by, what she might be lacking in experience she'd probably make up for in imagination, know what I'm saying?"

"That's vile," Claire told him sharply.

The boy gaffed and slapped John on the back. "She's jealous-" Claire glared at him. "-Catch you in German, Bender. _SIEG HEIL!_ _"_ And he drew his hand up in a Nazi salute before taking off down the corridor.

"He does know you're half Jewish?" she asked once he was gone.

"He's a dirty Greek goat fucker."

She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. They were impossible. She knew of John's friend, everyone did although she did not know his name. John was the most infamous one, seconded by Garth Volbeck, her old classmate from Elementary school. They most definitely had problems too; probably along the same lines as John's which was why they also felt entitled to step all over everyone else's feelings. It was too bad that she couldn't take the higher ground on that matter. A lot of the things Shayne had said about John were true, but then a lot of things John and Brian had said about her on Saturday were also true. Neither one of them were any better than the other, it was just John didn't pretend to be. He was right, she had laughed.

"So why the question?" he asked, turning back to the topic at hand.

Claire sighed. "My point is most Juniors wouldn't date a Freshman."

"But that's not what you asked. You asked me if I would date her."

"You wouldn't."

"I haven't answered the question."

"By all means, _answer away_."

John leaned in, until his lips were brushing the tip of her ear. She tried not to shiver.

"She's not my colour of red."

And just like that her anger dissipated. It wasn't fair. He wasn't fair. She turned in his arms to properly face him once more.

"…Wanna go to the drive-in tomorrow night?" she asked.

John arched an eyebrow in surprise and her tongue played nervously against her teeth. People only went to the drive-in for one reason and watching movies was definitely not it. Her face burned as he regarded her question and all its implications. It was so embarrassing. Sometimes she wished she could be like Caroline or Amanda. They had far more experience in extending invitations to third base.

"I can pick you up at half nine?" John offered as he rubbed small circles into the small of her back and Claire wondered what it feel like to have his hand on the bare skin there.

Before she could answer, an odd squeak interrupted them. Claire turned, annoyed. It had taken a lot of courage to even think about suggesting that date location. She'd spent all of Monday night trying to think of the best way to bring it up and now someone had interrupted much to her mortification.

And that someone of course was Allison. She was dressed half reasonably in Andrew's sweater but the black shit was back, so was the shapeless grey skirt. Claire however was more concerned with the way she was eyeing them both with odd, birdlike determination. It gave off the distinct impression of an eagle about to swoop for its prey.

"I want to go to a concert," she announced without bothering with pleasantries. Claire hadn't spoken to her since Saturday with the exception of a few corridor waves.

John's eyes narrowed. "Good for- _Ow!_ "

He shook out his leg from where the girl had kicked him. Claire stifled a laugh against the back of her hand. It served him right.

"And you're coming with me," Allison went on.

He glanced at Claire incredulously and she shrugged. Allison really was in a class of her own. "Why thank you for informing me then? And when will this concert be held?"

"Tomorrow night."

"No can do, Kooky. Claire and I've got plans. Go ask Sporto."

Allison frowned. "He can't go. He's got a meet on Saturday."

"He's got two days."

"He won't go. It's in Cats."

" _Cats?!"_ scoffed John. "No way in hell am I going there."

"I've already bought three tickets. For you and Claire…or Brian," she added. "If one of you won't go…"

But Brian wouldn't go. It was a knife in the gut if ever Claire felt one. His parents had him practically chained to his desk. John looked at her, she looked at him. She could see him relenting because so was she. Allison had probably never been to a concert with people she knew before.

"Cats is the place your sister's boyfriend works, isn't it?" Claire offered, looking up at John. "We wouldn't have to bring ID."

"All the more reason not to go."

"We can go on to see a movie on the weekend instead."

John pretended to consider this but she could see that he'd already made up his mind. Allison was even sneakier than he was.

"What's the band?" he caved at last with a sigh.

"The Rave-Ups," she handed John a piece of paper with a wide smile. "Here's my address."

* * *

When Allison stepped into TRAX, she planned to approach Andie, if she was working, and explaining the whole situation regarding John to her. Unfortunately, there was already someone at the counter being served. So Allison just stood and waited, until eventually it became quite apparent that the boy was not there to buy records. He didn't look like anyone who was supposed to be there in fact. He wore white linen and had feathered strawberry blonde hair and wore his shirt half unbuttoned. His body was propped up against the counter like a panther lazing in a tree.

"Look, this thing you're doing-" Allison watched him wave his hand between them. "-where you pretend like you don't find me attractive is cute and all-"

"I'm not pretending," Andie kept her eyes glued firmly to the magazine in front of her. She looked utterly disgusted. "Please buy something or leave."

"I don't get this. I try really hard with you. I go outta my way to talk to you when most people in our school wouldn't give you the time of day-" he said the last bit disdainfully, like he was doing her a massive favour.

"Gee, I'm honoured."

"You should be," went on the slime ball. "A guy like me has a lot of offer a girl of your social abnormalities."

"The only thing you've got to offer me is an STD─ How can I help you?" she plastered on a smile as she caught sight of Allison.

The boy barely stepped to the side as Allison pushed forward. Andie gave her a look as if by way to apologise for him. She wanted to tell her that it was okay, and that people were assholes, and that John Bender wasn't as bad as he let people believe.

"Three tickets to the Rave-Ups please," she said instead.

She watched Andie's expression carefully for a sneer of accusation that she was just going because she'd overheard them the day before. There was none. The till rattled as she drew up the bill, money exchanged hands and soon Allison had three tickets in her pocket. She'd lied to Claire and John, but then they knew she was a compulsive liar. If they were stupid enough to take what she had said at face value then that was their problem.

A small scoff of superiority escaped the boy's lips as she pushed passed him and out the door. Allison froze. The door hit her back halfway. She about turned, marching right back in, the bell ringing violently off the door frame over her head. As she approached the counter, Andie began to ask if she had forgotten something. She, however, kept her eyes glued on her prey. Shoving her way back beside the boy, she seized the staple gun from the counter and grabbed his by the front of his open shirt, dragging him roughly around to face her.

There was nothing but contempt in his eyes. "Got a problem─?"

 _TAC! TAC!_

Allison let go and slammed the staple gun back down on the counter, victorious. The boy stared down at the crudely stapled closed shirt in open mouth astonishment. She didn't look at Andie but she heard the gratitude in her laugh.

Finally, the rage kicked in. His blue eyes flared. "Bitch! This is Egyptian cotton!"

"You're a shit."

Allison didn't wait to see if her words had cut him. She walked back out of the store with her head held high and the three tickets secure in her pocket. It was going to be an excellent concert, she could feel it.

* * *

"That has got to be the ugliest house I have ever seen."

John turned off the engine and stared up at the modernist disaster Claire so disdained off. The façade was an abstract smattering of willy-nilly windows, arbitrary lines, and blocky protrusions all set in white cement. It was pretty damn hideous, the sort of hideous that only an art lover would appreciate.

"I'm pretty sure I've seen cardboard boxes that look better," Claire went on.

He peered around at the strange array of sculptures decorating the flowerbeds.

"Is that a dick?" He pointed to the one with a questionably shaped nose standing in the centre of the drive.

"It's called modern art," she replied.

"Is that a euphemism?"

"Pretty much!" She laughed and hiked her purse over her shoulder as they stepped out onto the concrete and closed the van doors. John lit a cigarette and threw away the match.

"Do you think her parents are like former Factory dredges? Like Betsey Johnson and John Cale?" Claire looked excited at the prospect.

"If they were she probably would've been better socialised. The way she is, I wouldn't be surprise if she turned out to be Schrödinger's original cat."

Claire's eyes lit up in surprise. "Schrödin-? Isn't that a quantum _physics_ theory?!"

"Indeed, I did hear it mentioned in physics class."

There was a pause. His temper flared.

"What?" he rounded on her. "You think I'm too dumb to take physics?"

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to."

"I was just surprised about you taking physics. I didn't think it would be your sort of thing."

"Why _wouldn't_ it be?"

"I thought you weren't interested in anything mathematical!" she burst out. "You said to Brian that you didn't give a shit about it."

"Just cause I don't give a shit about it doesn't mean I can't do it."

Claire sighed, exasperated. "I never said that you couldn't do it. It just seems too…" she searched for the word.

"Seems too _what_ exactly? _"_

"… _uncool_ for your tastes."

She had him there. John saw her cast him a nervous sidelong glance, her breath catching in her throat as she waited for his mood to swing once more. Before John would've let her stew in her discomfort but Claire wasn't out to get him. Brian had been the one who'd thought he was superior but then John was the one who'd always felt education was beneath him. After all, what was the point in it if you were never going to go to college?

"I'm good at numbers," he admitted finally. "Physics, Shop, anything mathematical, I just don't get a hard on for it like Dweebie."

"That's probably why you could make the elephant lamp."

John's eyes darted sideways to look at her face. She was grinning, so was he. Christ, they were both such goddamn assholes. He threw his arm around her neck and pulled her against him, kissing her. She relaxed and giggled as their feet caught and they half tripped over one another on their way to the door.

"This place like totally explains why Allison is like…" she rang the bell. " _You know_."

She beamed as it opened to reveal a harassed woman with wild thick blonde curls and lots of gemstones and thick silver chains. John pressed his lips down on his cigarette butt as surprise fluttered across the woman's face, quickly replaced by suspicion. Claire thankfully jumped in before she could ask if they were selling anything.

"Good evening, Mrs Reynolds," she said in her very best parent voice. "We're here to collect Allison."

"I'm Rhonda, Mrs Reynold's assistant."

"Oh…" Claire glanced at John and tried not to laugh. "Oh sorry, my mistake."

For some reason he felt like laughing too. Maybe it was her Dweebie comment or Rhonda's ridiculous lion mane, or maybe it was just the whole surreal and wonderful turn his life had taken but God help him if he didn't find it all hilarious.

Before Rhonda stepped back from the door to let them in, she pointed to the cigarette in John's mouth.

"Not inside."

Without a word, he dragged it against the white wall, extinguishing it in a line of ash before dropping it on the ground. The woman looked unimpressed to say the least. Claire nudged him forward. Her face shielded by his arm. John could hear her giggling quietly.

They were left in the airy reception room at the bottom of an abstract winding staircase amongst bright and ridged sculptures and Swedish designer furniture. At the foot of the stair hung a painting on plywood that depicted a multi-coloured and oddly segmented painting of the human digestive tract. At least that was what John thought it was. It was quite cartoony with black outlines and muddy pinks and reds. He was pretty sure one part was shitting out a brown pool of excrement.

"How bad was the acid trip this guy was on when he did this?" asked John as he looked at it. Art completely eluded him.

"Carroll Dunham," his girlfriend read the name at the bottom corner aloud. "I went to a show of his in New York last year with my aunt. It looks so much more unsettling outside a gallery setting. I mean, why would you put this in your house of all things?"

But the painting didn't make John feel unsettled; he found it rather humorous. It was like Warner Brother's had decided to release a new cartoon character based on intestines. The only thing potentially disturbing thing about it was that Allison's parents had bought it. It was no wonder she was so fucked.

"You're not seriously going out in _that?"_

Claire's question placed him in the now. He followed her gaze to where Allison was standing on the steps, dressed in a long, black ruffled number that looked like something straight out of Little House on the Prairie.

Allison's eyes narrowed. "Why? What's wrong with this?"

"It's perfect for Caroline Ingalls's funeral," said John and the girl scowled.

Ever the saint, Claire took her by the hand and pulled her back up the stairs. "C'mon, show me to your closet."

The girl followed reluctantly.

Allison's bedroom was like a cross between crow's nest and a psychiatrist's wet dream. Crystals, silver and gold foil fans and dream catchers hung from the ceiling. There were photographs and magazines covering the walls, all with their eyes whitened out to create a collage of empty spectators. _'One flew east, one flew west; one flew over the cuckoo's nest'_ John thought to himself as he picked up a Rubik's cube that was sitting on the desk and began peeling off the stickers and rearranging them on opposite squares.

"I want to wear black," Allison protested stubbornly as Claire held up a purple skirt.

"You look better with a bit of colour." She grabbed a dress. "How about navy? Or midnight blue? It's like practically black."

"I want to wear black," she reaffirmed.

At Claire's sigh, John whistled the opening verse to ' _Paint it Black_.' A lot could be said about a person's room and whatever Allison's issues were, she wasn't exactly being discreet about it. Her room wasn't meant to be a girl's room, it wasn't meant to be a sanctuary where she could hide from the world or from her parent's wrath. Things were left out for her parents to find. From the artwork to the empty bottles of vodka lining the windowsill, to the open diary right in front of him with the crudely written words "Help me" scribbled over and over again. He wasn't sure what her deal was. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to know.

But he asked anyway because from the looks of it she was dying to tell somebody.

"So where are the folks this evening? Do they usually leave you with their assistant?"

"They're around." The girl shrugged. "Probably screwing."

"Waaay too much information there, thanks!" mustered Claire eventually.

John watched in amusement as Allison's lip curled at her priggishness. Claire really was a pristine girl through and through.

"They screw each other all the time," she leaned in closer to her, a small witchlike smile breaking across her lips. "They were screwing in the living room earlier."

"You watch them?" John goaded.

Allison head snapped around like a whip. She scowled. "No. I hear them. She screams like Barbarella."

"That is gross! Why are you telling us this? Parents having sex is like so wrong." Claire was shaking her head in sheer disbelief.

"So I take it you are the result of immaculate conception, Cherry?" asked John.

"Maybe she was a test tube baby?" offered Allison.

"She's Catholic. They don't believe in science or condoms."

Claire rolled her eyes, handed Allison a bundle of clothes and pushed her into the en-suite bathroom. "Put this on," she turned to John. "I know parents have sex it's just no one wants to know about it let alone discuss it: period."

John couldn't argue there. He'd heard the screams too at night although it was less in recent years. The blacks of Reinette's eyes were always like a vacuum the following morning. Sometimes there were tears too, in the kitchen or in the bathroom, any room where she thought he couldn't hear her. If Senior heard her he'd have another go. And the screams would start all over again.

Those screams haunted his nightmares.

There were a three more changes of clothes until finally Claire and Allison settled on the compromise of a black Pretender's t-shirt and a knee length black skirt. Allison wouldn't let her touch her hair or her make-up, despite all her pleas.

"Well, at least now we'll be able to distinguish her from the curtains," offered John helpfully as Claire finally relented.

"Hey, I like that dress," said Allison. "And I don't want to wear that." She pointed to the turquoise belt in Claire's hand.

"Humour me," Claire buckled it around her waist. "You're supposed to be 21, remember? And it goes so don't complain."

She led her in front of the mirror, like a proud mother showcasing her child. Allison chewed on her bottom lip apprehensively as she stared long and hard at her reflection. Time passed, John pick up a sharpie and start colouring in the Rubik cube in black.

"I don't look like me," she said finally.

"Maybe if you let me take off some of that eye make-up you'll look more like you?" smiled his girlfriend winningly.

But Allison would not relent. She grabbed her bag and a long cardigan and wrapped her scarf around her neck. As they passed the mirror, she quickly picked up a make-up pencil and began blacking the line beneath her eyes even further.

"Don't-!"

"Who cares?" John cut off Claire's protest.

His girlfriend frowned for a moment. "She looks _older_ without it."

"If our kid wants to be a panda then she can. I still don't approve of you dating that Clarke boy," he waggled his finger at their friend. Allison gave a rare, authentic smile. "Besides, it's not gonna matter where we're going. They all dress like that-" he jerked his head at her. From the expression on Claire's face it was clear she held his trepidations. It was probably going to be a goddamn freak show.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was a thin, tall woman with grey hair and a colourful Aztec knit sweater shifting through a set of drawers in the reception room. She didn't raise her head to acknowledge them.

"Allison, have you seen my passport?" she called.

"I think-" began the girl.

"Never mind," said the woman dismissively, hurrying off into the back of the house.

"-it's in the top drawer in the kitchen," Allison finished. Claire looked at him worriedly. He felt worried too. Something was seriously wrong with Allison's parents other than their highly active sex life. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"That your Mom?" he asked.

She nodded silently. There was a clattering of heels as the woman rushed back in again, this time with glasses on, her hands were hurriedly putting a string of green beads around her neck.

"RHONDA!" she called. "HAVE YOU FOUND IT?"

Rhonda rushed in, hot on her heels with the passport in hand as Allison ushered them towards the front door.

"Where was it?" he heard her ask.

"In the top drawer in the kitchen."

And once again they were gone. John and Claire stood outside waiting, trying to avoid each other's gaze.

"I'm going out now," Allison called down the deserted hall. There was no reply.

It was only as he shut the driver's door that John suddenly realised that aside from not saying goodbye to her own daughter, Mrs Reynolds hadn't even acknowledged Claire and his existence.

"She's always like that," spoke Allison quietly. "They both are. They never hear me."

If John had a heart to break, it might have broken for her. She looked tiny, all crumpled in and miserable. Claire stroked her arm soothingly.

"Fuck them," she said firmly, repeating the sentiments she and him had shared on Monday night.

Claire was right. Fuck them. Fuck them all.

"I left my cigarettes in your room. Keys," he held out his hand to Allison.

John opened the front door and peered left and right; there was no one to be seen. Somewhere in the back of the house people were talking and laughing. His eyes fell on the Carroll Dunham painting. It was just too fucking easy when it came to rich people. He grabbed it off the wall and walked straight back out the front door, whistling to himself as he closed it behind him.

John handed Allison back her keys and gave the painting to Claire.

"Shove that in that back, would you?"

Claire blinked at him and then looked to Allison. There was a moment in which John thought the little Goth was going to go chicken and put it back in the house. It passed. Claire's nervous giggle broke the tension.

"You'll give it back later, right?" his girlfriend checked. "This is just to freak them out."

John glanced at Allison. "You want it back?"

Allison shrugged. "It's not mine."

There was a pause. "…What would potentially happen to you if John didn't give it back?" Claire asked.

"I don't know."

Suddenly, a laugh erupted from her lips, shooting upwards like a geyser in a shrill shriek. Claire startled beside him. It was impossible to tell if the girl was terrified or elated, either way she'd completely fucking lost it.

"I don't know!" Allison repeated as her shoulders shook and mirth took over. _"I don't know!"_

There were tears rolling down her cheeks.

To be continued…

A/N: This chapter has been one of the ones I've really looking forward to write from the beginning, the same with the next one. I hope you enjoyed it. Feedback always welcomed.


	7. Chapter 7

'Youth Novels'

Chapter Seven

It took John the opening cords to Rave-Up's first song to decide that they were a bunch of whiny wannabe British bastards. New Wave wasn't his thing, and for good reason. The venue itself was like a watered down Keroucian gimmick, filled with hazy blue light, hairspray and middle class punters in their thrift store bought individualism.

From a stool at the end of the long bar, he nursed his one beer and watched the girls dance beneath the strobing blue lights and smoke. It wasn't all bad. During lulls the barman, Bert, a hulking brown American chopper of a man with a handlebar moustache talked to him about the up and coming game between the White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. Mostly however, Bert was kept busy, so John was left alone to his beer and the girls─ not that he needed to watch them much. Cats wasn't like Skinny's, and Claire and Allison already emitted their own respective auras of 'danger; do not touch.'

It was fun to watch them though. The two quickly downed beers had done wonders for Claire's inhibitions. She danced away as freely and as carelessly as she had done on the Saturday. Allison on the other hand needed no such encouragement. She lurched and she shook and she trembled to her knees like a preacher in the throes of a sermon. Together, the Princess and the Basketcase moved like no one was watching, and John realised that he probably was the only one who was.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

A smirk gathered itself on his lips and he turned to face the speaker. Short blonde hair, no bra and a masculine sense of dress; it was none other than Watts, Duncan's favourite enemy. She was glaring at him, demanding to know why he was polluting her favourite hangout.

"I'm here with my girlfriend. I see you're here with yours too," he nodded his head to where Ray McCarthy was sitting with her artsy friends.

He'd noticed them walk in earlier with his arm around her shoulder. Ray had given him a wave so naturally John had ignored him. Buyer and seller was as far as he was willing to let their acquaintanceship go.

"I'm not with him," replied Watts shortly. She was pressed up against the bar, dollars in one hand, her other tapping along to the beat. It was the last free spot at the booze crushed bar otherwise she wouldn't have stood beside him. They disliked each other enough to respect one another's personal space.

"Ah yes," John smirked. "He is _technically_ a guy after all."

Predictably, her head snapped around. "How long are you and your butthead friends going to keep cracking lesbian jokes?"

"I don't know? How long do you intend to be a lesbian for?"

"Sorry to disappoint your masturbation fantasies, _jack off_ but I'm not a lesbian. Not that it would be any of your business if I were. My sexuality is not for your entertainment, Bender."

"Watts," he sighed. "I speak for the entire male race here when I say this; I'd sooner jack one out to Wookie than _you_."

It hurt her. He could see it in her eyes, the niggling doubt in regards to her own physical worth. He would've felt a little bad about it if he let himself to acknowledge it, but Watts and him at been at each other's throats since Freshmen year. She'd taken umbrage with the fact he and Duncan had given Phil Dale a hard time back in Elementary, so in response they'd taken umbrage with her very existence.

Watts clenched her jaw and turned to face the bar. "Can I get some service over here?!" she called to Bert. John snickered as the man ignored her in favour of a busty brunette in a tube top. " _Asshole_."

"Perhaps you should reconsider your wardrobe?" John goaded, picking a peanut from the tray in front of him and tossing it in his mouth. "I take it your thing is to pretend you're queer because no one finds you attractive?"

"If I'm so unattractive then why would I be here on a date?" she retorted.

"I thought you weren't _with_ Ray?" At her stony expression, John laughed even harder.

"Going on a date with someone doesn't equate togetherness. It's just a date."

" _So…_ why are you on a date with him if you don't like him?"

 _Busted._ She shrugged. "It's something to do."

John knew for a fact that no woman, not even one as supposedly 'confused' as Watts liked to emit would ever concede to going on a date with Ray just out of boredom. The guy looked like a pumpkin that had been face fucked by a hedgehog.

He considered her answer for a moment. "So either you're desperate, which given your state of self is understandable or- _or_ -" he leered, his grin widening. "Ray's not the guy you're aiming for tonight, you're just using him to get someone else's attention." When her lips frowned, he knew he'd hit the bullseye. " _Man_ -" he turned away, shaking his head. "-that is a bitch move. I almost feel sorry for the guy."

"Like you've never done it."

"I've never had to. Pathetic isn't my style."

Right on cue, a pair of long white arms slipped themselves around his neck in a rich cloud of perfume. Claire had come to stake her claim.

"Are you coming to dance?" She asked, leaning her head against his shoulder.

"Sure, right after hell freezes over."

" _Oh?_ I can go find the manager and arrange it that 'hell freezes over' suddenly becomes the new name to one of their songs."

He didn't doubt that she could. She probably had three hundred dollars in her purse and from her tone it was clear she was suspicious of him talking to Watts. John slipped an arm around her waist as he turned on his stool and pulled her in between his legs until she was leaning back against his thighs. Her hair was slightly wet and flat from the exertion of dancing and there was a thin sheen of sweat upon her face, otherwise she looked practically perfect as usual in a cream top of light, almost see-through material and a string of pearls. Claire had a level of sophistication that he'd never seen before in a high school girl. He really digged that.

"Or you can have a beer with me," he told her. "But you'll have to sit on my knee for a bit. Watts here is having trouble getting served on the account that she looks like a Swiss Pool Boy."

Claire hastily stifled a laugh with her hand as she looked at Watts' attire.

"Fuck you," Watts spat at her. "─ _Finally!"_ she grumbled as Bert approached. "You know, I've been waiting for the past two thousand years?!"

The man barely spared her a glance as he took her order. Then he turned to Claire.

" _Rude much?"_ Claire wrinkled her nose at the girl's behaviour before asking for a red wine. John laughed when she was informed, of course, that they had none so she settled reluctantly for beer.

"For the lady," smiled Bert as he placed Claire's in front of her first. He gave John a congratulatory wink.

"You know," Watts spun around, drink finally in hand. It was clear she was gearing to get the last word in before they parted company. "You two are perfect for each other; the asshole and the bitch."

"Better a bitch than a butch," sneered his girlfriend.

John's chortles followed Watts all the way through the crowd and back to her table. Then Claire looked at him, an accusatory stare fixed in place.

"Why were you talking to her anyway?" she asked.

"She talked to me first. I made pretty damn sure she soon regretted it-" Claire smiled. "-Where's Kooky?" he glanced around for a sign of the mad woman.

"At the front of the stage… Christ, that girl is such a _freak_!"

His jaw clenched. "Who? _Allison?"_

"Course not," Claire looked offended that he'd even suggest it. "She's just weird. I mean _her_ -" she jerked her head to the place Watts had recently vacated. "You know she wears old man's boxers?"

He wasn't surprised. "Are they her old man's?"

" _Probably._ She once threatened to shove a drumstick up Mia's nose too," she rolled her eyes. "And her psycho friend is always staring at Amanda. He's a total stalker. He was like staring at her out of it last week when Hardy and Amanda were fighting─ she thinks he's cheating on her again─ which he _totally_ is because he always does, and she should like dump him already but Shayne keeps telling her not to-"

"Why?" he cut through her babble. He'd forgotten that sometimes she went full bimbo mode. It must've been engrained in her from years of dealing with bitches because Claire wasn't vapid. He didn't like it when she went like that, she was selling herself short.

"Because Hardy's the whole reason why she's popular in the first place," she explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "We all got to know her because of him so if she does something that Hardy doesn't like, he can easily get everyone to ice her out. It's the same with Steff McKee. If a girl turns him down then no one is to talk to her."

"Do you even like Hardy?" She shook her head and he held up his hands in an incredulous gesture. "But you would still ice her out if he told you to?!"

"…I wouldn't," she said stoutly, and he believed her. "I would still talk to her and hang out with her but my point is no one else would. She's not really the same as us in their eyes. She's at the edge of the group."

"Because she's not rich?"

She looked ashamed. "…yeah, kinda."

"There's no kinda about it, Princess. You said it yourself the only reason why you richies tolerate her is cause she's going out with Jenns. If she wasn't, you would never have given her the time of day."

"I gave _you_ the time of day."

"That's because you've been enlightened. Face it, if you hadn't been locked in with me for nine hours, you wouldn't have looked at me twice."

"That's _not_ true."

" _Oh?"_ John cocked his head to the side as his mouth fell open in a teasing smirk. "So you looked before?"

She ran her finger down the label of her beer bottle, feigning nonchalance but her cheeks were red. "You're not exactly inconspicuous, John."

He pressed his forehead into the crook of her shoulder, feeling the warmth and the damp on his skin, breathing in the alluring scent of her perfume. When she'd suggested the drive-in originally, it had really taken him by surprise. He didn't think a girl like Claire would want to rush into things so eagerly. Maybe he had misjudged the reasons she'd frozen up on Monday? He dismissed the thought almost immediately. Claire believed in true love and Princes and goddamn fairy godmothers. She was probably pushing herself in order to prove to him that she wasn't a prude. Suddenly, John realised that he didn't particularly care if she was one or not. They'd get there eventually sooner or later, but better later when she wasn't so quite so uptight.

"You know, we can always hit the drive-in together some other weekend if it's better for you?" he suggested, trying to be as casual as possible.

Claire turned in surprise. "You don't want to go?" she sounded a little put out. John arched an eyebrow. Of course he did. She picked up on it, her cheeks flushing even pinker. "...Why do you think we shouldn't go?"

"I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm just wondering if you've got stuff you need to do? You wanna be Prom Queen, right?" She nodded slowly. He sucked in a breath and tapped his foot against the stool. "I'm sure spending all your free time with me instead of going shopping with your _friends_ will turn their votes against you. You said yourself they like to ice people out."

"If they were going to, they would've done so already."

"Maybe they're just waiting for an excuse? Maybe they wanna make it look like they tried but I somehow turned you against them? I get how this thing works, Claire. You gotta go to parties; you gotta kiss babies' cheeks and do bake sales and mingle with dicks like Jenns and McKee."

Her lips parted in a soft 'o' of astonishment. "You want me to win? I thought that sort of stuff didn't matter to you."

"Who doesn't want to date the Prom Queen?" She rolled her eyes. "Look, I really couldn't give a shit either way but you seem to want win it so…" He let out a stiff sigh. "You gotta do what you gotta do. We can save the drive-in for a later date."

He'd given her an out, whether she took it or not was her choice. A part of him hoped that she wouldn't. Being in her presence felt wonderful, having her talk to him like this felt even better. John had never had that before. He couldn't believe that a single person could make any situation instantly tolerable, but that's what Claire did. He found he didn't even mind the music any more, mostly because he couldn't hear it. Claire's presence muffled out everything around them.

"I have been promising to hold a sleepover for ages. I guess I should do that this weekend," she sighed, taking it. John's muscles relaxed. He hadn't even realised he'd been holding them. "And Jake's holding a party─ _well_ , Caroline's technically organising it. It's on Friday night. You should come," she added.

"No can do, Friday night is family fun night at the old Bender house. A few of my siblings come over, we have meatloaf and we afterwards we kick the crap out of each other."

Claire's eyebrows shot up her forehead in alarm. "You guys fight physically?"

"We never had board games growing up so we've always had to iron out our issues the old fashioned way."

"Can you not skip dinner and come to the party instead? I'd feel a lot happier if you did."

"As tempting as that offer is, Princess if I ditch the repercussions will be far worse. My old man is a real stickler family meals; he likes to sit everyone down and tell them how much of a goddamn waste of space they are. Hence why there are only ever four of us at the table these days."

" _God…"_

For the horror on her face, John knew he should have felt more than resignation. Friday nights were just another sorry fact in his life, and if he wasn't there then things might get messy. He wasn't Senior's only punching bag after all.

"Plus, I have my date with Dick on Saturday morning bright and early. Do you think he'll like roses?"

The laughter quickly faded but they still sat wrapped in one another, content to share in each other's warmth and space. Soon Allison joined them. Dancing had done wonders for her make-up in that the sweat had washed most of it off. Now she looked less like a panda and more like a chimney sweep. They watched in disbelief as she produced a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice from her bag, ordered a coke and a spare glass from Bert and then mixed the two of them together.

"Couldn't you have ordered a vodka like a normal person?" asked Claire, eyeing the concoction with disgust.

"I don't drink vodka," Allison dipped her finger tips into the molten wax of the tea light beside the peanuts as she sucked noisily through a straw. "I pour it down the sink and put the empty bottles on my windowsill. I've got fourteen of them now. I used to have more but I dropped them out the window."

Claire chose not to react to this. "How are things with Andrew going?"

The girl shrugged. "He's busy. He has a lot of friends. I can't talk to them."

"But none of them have been mean to you, right?"

"All they see is Andrew's arm around me. I could be any other girl to them."

"I'm sure Jake Ryan would talk to you if you tried. He's nice."

"He's a square."

"No, he's-" Claire frowned and then smiled a little guiltily. John began to laugh. "-Yeah, he is. It drives Caroline totally nuts. Have you spoken to Andrew?" she said, fixing him with another accusatory stare.

Before John could open his mouth, Allison cut across him. "He hasn't but then Andrew hasn't spoken to him either. They're pretending like the other doesn't exist." Then she turned to him. "You should talk to him."

"Why should I? He hasn't talked to me."

"He'll talk to you if you talk to him."

"Maybe I don't want to talk to him, alright?" he said, growing irritable. Things were too similar between him and Andrew. Shit just got too real. He didn't know how to look at him any more. "-He's him, I'm me. We've been fucking enemies since Kindergarten. No amount of shit is gonna change that. Right now we've got an understanding were we don't step on each other's toes. That's it."

"For two people who haven't talked that's really quite some understanding to have reached," said his girlfriend pointedly.

John removed his hands from her waist and glared. "Fuck off, Claire."

She got off the stool and away from him. "… _Fine_ ," she grabbed her purse from the countertop. "I will go to the bathroom, but you might want to consider being in a better mood when I get back."

John watched her saunter away to the ladies room, head held high.

"What?" he spat at Allison who had been watching the entire exchange with great amusement.

The girl just shrugged and tossed a peanut in the air and caught it in her open mouth.

* * *

Since turning sixteen, Claire had drunk wine in small chic cafes on the streets of Paris, sipped on champagne at the company Christmas ball and other high society events. She had even forced herself to drink beer at high school keggers, but never had she been to a bar before, let alone a concert where a band of men with floppy hair blasted sentiments of utter disinterest in love and modernity. She could appreciate it. It was different, cool even to see where all the art house coffee kids went to hang out. Being there made her realise just how envious her previous snide remarks and criticisms of them had been. They did the same things she did; they just had cooler places to hang out. They probably had cooler conversations too.

They didn't have better bathrooms however.

Claire looked in the first cubical and immediately recoiled in disgust at the overflowing bowl of sodden toilet paper. The second one was no better. The third at least was clean but there were streams of paper on the floor. Claire nudged it out of the way with her toe and put toilet paper on top of the seat before sitting down to do her business.

There were words of love and hate scored into red ply board all around her. Claire studied them, trying to search for the contrived meaning behind the disembodied song lyrics and political slogans. Someone had even written the full words to Hunter S. Thompson's _The Wave_ quote just above the toilet roll dispenser. It was like a miniature city with a million voices all shouting over one another and all of them thought they were the most important.

She was annoyed at John, _again_ but she was also annoyed at Andrew. They were being a pair of idiots. As she sat up, she heard a slightly drunk voice shout itself over those of the eyelinered girls' by the sink outside.

"─If I were you, I'd tell Dice what he said, that'd get him thrown out for sure. It'd also get Standish thrown out too," the voice added with vindictive satisfaction.

Claire sighed. No matter where she went there was always this bullshit. She gathered herself together, flushed the toilet and reached for the door, only to stop. Maybe she was a sucker for punishment but she wanted to catch them red handed bitching about her.

"If you do that then that other girl they're with will be thrown out too," interrupted another voice. "And I kinda owe her. She was the one who took care of McSlime for me this afternoon."

"The one in the Pretender's shirt?" It sounded like Watts speaking. Obviously John had said something particularly horrendous to her that she was still going on about it. "I thought you said it was the girl who came into TRAX on Tuesday?"

"That's _her!_ Didn't you recognise her?"

Evidently Watts didn't. "But I thought she was a straight?"

"She's not."

Claire bit back a laugh at the mere thought of Allison living a cookie cutter life style. The girl was more like Wednesday Addams out of the Addam's family with sneakers thrown in.

"She looked like a straight on Tuesday."

"She's pretty out there," her friend assured her. "You wouldn't think it because she never talks. I don't think I've ever heard her speak before this week, and then out of nowhere she suddenly sticks a sanitary pad on Bender's glasses and staples McKee's shirt closed."

"She did _what?!_ "

The girls jumped as Claire flung open the cubical door with a bang. She'd guessed right, it was Watts, along with Jena Hoeman, the New Waver with the bad attitude and even worse earrings and a red haired girl in frilly lace whom Caroline often liked to refer to as 'Cupcake girl.'

Jena's lip curled. She was smoking, her red and blue two tone eyeshadow was smudged and her purple lipstick was crushed into her chin from a possible hard make out session. "Are you gonna tell your boyfriend that we were talking about him, Standish?" she goaded, taking a drag. She blew the smoke right in Claire's direction.

"Whatever," Claire raised a hand to cut her off and pointed at Cupcake girl. "Repeat what you just said about what Allison did to McKee, from the beginning."

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" demanded Jena as Watts smiled. God, they were such bitches.

"Because if you owe my friend, you'll tell me," she shot back. "I'll be the one who'll have to warn her about whether or not she'll need to wear a bulletproof vest to school tomorrow."

With a glance at her friends, the red head reluctantly began to talk. Claire's jaw steadily dropped as the tale unfolded. She knew Allison was crazy, it was pretty cool how crazy she was but it was abundantly clear that the girl had absolutely no concept of how difficult Steff could make her life. It also figured that she lied about having already bought the tickets.

When she finished, Claire shook her head. "That's just _great!_ " She ran her hands quickly under the tap and dried them with a sheet of toilet paper. "Of all the people to screw with! _"_

"I think what she did was pretty cool," said Watts.

Claire blinked at her, still reeling with shock. "Yeah, if you've got a freaking death wish! He's totally gonna set Benny and Trombley on her now."

This made Jena straighten up. "They're hardly a threat. I've been dealing with Barbie and her bimbo crew since Freshman year-" A cloud of smoke curled from her nostrils as she stabbed out her cigarette in the sink with a hiss and a jangle of bracelets. "-The worst they'll do is write skank on her locker. Fucking ironic, considering how much of a skank Benny is."

Claire snorted as she began inspecting her reflection in the mirror. _"Tell me about it."_

"I thought you were friends with them?"

She could see how Jena had easily made that mistake. By all appearances, they all looked like friends. They weren't really though, not in the way that Caroline and Shayne and Amanda were.

"They're not really friends," Claire admitted. "More like people I work with. I have got no interest in hanging out with them outside of school."

Watts scoffed at her. "So you consider this whole popularity thing you've got going on a _job?_ "

Claire realised just how conceited that sounded. "What I meant is that they do some of the same extra-curricular activities as me. We go to meetings together and organise stuff, and we go to the same parties but we're not like _friends_ friends…"

And they'd be even less friends now that Allison had humiliated Steff. There was a shit storm brewing on the horizon, Claire could feel. Anxiety clawed it's sickening hand around her gut as her instincts screamed at her to hide behind her usual defences; the Prom, the pretty people, the superficial conversations. Caroline was right, she could lose her chance at becoming Prom Queen and it was all because Steff owned people, just like Hardy. Anything they said went, and now poor Amanda was stuck with the biggest jackass the world had ever seen because of it. John's words about how her friends biding their time in order to make it look like she was the one at fault finally struck home. She'd thought he'd just been trying to get out of going to the drive-in for whatever reason.

"They're not particularly nice people," she admitted quietly.

"And you are?" Jena asked snidely. Cupcake girl nudged her in the arm to stop. Jena ignored her. Beside them, Watts folded her arms over as she waited for her response with a satisfied sneer on her face.

Claire's teeth clenched underneath their scrutiny. "I try to be. I mean, I'm not perfect. I sometimes say mean things but no more than you do. I don't enjoy hurting people."

"Then maybe you should reconsider dating Bender?" snapped Watts. "That's all he likes to do."

"If you have a problem with John, take it up with John but don't drag me into it. I've never done anything to you that you haven't already done to me." And with that she grabbed her purse and marched out the door, nose in the air.

* * *

The concert finished at eleven o'clock. John made sure to flip Dice Man the bird when they walked past him on the way to his van. After returning from the toilet, Claire had been in subdued form. At first he'd been worried that she was still mad at him for cussing her out but the way she kept glancing nervously at Allison told him otherwise. He didn't ask her about it. She hadn't asked any more questions about Andrew and he wanted to keep it that way. So he bought her another beer and they sat at the bar and the three of them talked about everything but awkward questions.

Eventually, after Allison went off to the dance floor again, she'd lightened up and kissed him, hard on the mouth, her fingers in his hair. So when they walked out of the bar at eleven, his arm was slung around her shoulders, he wondered _why_ to himself, why had he convinced himself into convince her that changing their weekend plans was a good idea? It was probably the stupidest thing he had ever done.

He goddamn hoped she appreciated it.

As he unlocked the door, Allison drew something to his attention.

"Their car's broken down," She jerked her head towards where Watts was furiously slapping her steering wheel of her two toned Volkswagen beetle. Ray was in the front passenger seat beside her, trying to calm her down. She looked about ready to throttle him.

John chuckled and pulled out a cigarette. He offered one to Claire and she took it. She'd gone quiet again. John didn't like it when she was quiet. It made him feel on edge.

"Sucks to be them," he said lightly, climbing into the driver's seat.

"You should give them a ride," Allison was staring at him in her odd birdlike way, guilt tripping him into it.

But John wasn't going to let her do it. He'd already sacrificed sex tonight for her. "I'm not a fucking taxi service."

"There are no garages open at this hour."

"Not my problem."

"Give them a ride," said Claire abruptly. He turned to his girlfriend as if she'd suddenly just gone insane.

"She called you a bitch, remember?" he reminded her as he struck up a match and lit the end of her cigarette before lighting his own.

"So have you and I don't hold it against you…"

"No way in hell."

"I'm going to go help them," announced Allison, with one final glare at John, she sauntered off to the other car.

"Does you even know the first thing about cars?!" John called after her retreating back incredulously. "What?" he demanded, seeing Claire's look. She too was stuck on the idea of him playing the white knight of the evening it seemed.

"I caught her talking shit about you in the bathroom with Jena Hoeman," she told him.

"And so far you are not giving me any good reason here to give them a ride."

"Moral superiority, John," she flicked the ash into the overflowing tray. "You really need to clean that out." She added, pointing to it.

John picked it out of its holder, unwound the window and dumped it onto the wet tarmac with a thump.

"There. Clean," he put it back with a grin.

His girlfriend rolled her eyes in the way she always did when she knew he was purposely trying to annoy her. "Think about it," she said. He sighed. She was not going to let this one go easily. "You give them a lift and Watts can no longer go on at me for what a horrible dick you are to her."

"I don't need you to defend me."

"I know you can defend yourself, but I need to be able to defend the fact that I'm going out with you. You said earlier that I gotta do what I gotta do, right? So that involves hanging out with dicks like Hardy and Steff and convincing people that you're not as bad as you let on."

John's temper flared for the third time that evening. "You're not dragging me into your Prom Queen bullshit."

But Claire was staring at him, worried, frightened even. There was something in her expression that stopped the rage from sticking.

"John…" she said quietly after a moment. "Allison has landed me in a potential shit storm with Steff." She nibbled on her bottom lip before going on. "Watts' friend, you know the one that dresses like a cupcake-?" He laughed lightly despite himself. He knew exactly what girl she was talking about. "-Well, she told me earlier about something Allison did to him in the place where she works today."

"What did she do?"

When she told him, John howled with laughter.

"It's not that funny," but Claire's lips were splitting into a smile. She struggled with herself, forcing herself to be serious. Finally, she got a handle on it once more. "You know that thing you said? About them just waiting for an excuse?"

"You think they'll use this thing with Allison?"

She looked down, avoiding his eyes. "…I've worked really hard these past few years. I know you think it's dumb but it's important to me," she told him. She spoke gently, vulnerably like she was bearing her utmost secrets to him in the same way she had on Saturday. "I've done everything, I've joined the student newspaper, I help with the year book, I'm Vice-President of the Student Council and I run the Prom Committee. I work really hard to get good grades too, and then-" she swallowed thickly as her voice began to crack. "…The fact that someone can take that all away from me just because I want to be friends with certain people or date you, it… _it's not_ _fair!_ "

He suddenly realised she was crying. She tried to hide it, she tried to turn her face away from him but John could see her shoulders shake. Without a word, without a single thought as to what he was doing, he reached out and gathered her into his chest. For a while they sat there, her clinging to him as a new feeling of rage began to form in his stomach.

"Your friends are fucking scumbags," he mustered finally. "If they try anything, anything at all you come and find me immediately."

She nodded weakly, her head still buried in the front of his denim jacket. John stroked his fingers through her hair as tenderly as he could, despite wanting to punch a hole in a wall. He hated tears. He'd never known what to do when he saw them on Reinette's face or on the faces of his brothers and sisters. The only way John knew how to deal with them was by letting the anger drown out the feelings of helplessness and sorrow. It was part of the reason why he'd gotten so angry at Claire when she'd started to cry on Saturday. He'd been angry at himself too, at his Dad, at his fucked up excuse for a life.

Hell, he'd been angry at the entire world in that instant.

"Right, straighten yourself up, Sweets," he told her after another moment. "We gotta leave a nice impression on the neighbours─ Hey Allison!" he leaned out the window as Claire sat up and tried to recompose herself. "Tell them that if they want a ride, there's one going for them right now but I'm not gonna wait around for them to make up their minds."

"You're gonna do it?" Claire looked at him in surprise, her tears forgotten.

"If I kill Ray it'll be on you."

She wiped her eyes and smiled. "Thanks John."

"The shit I do for you, Princess."

She sighed heavily and leaned in against his shoulder. Her eyes flickered closed. "Thanks for taking the fall with Vernon too."

He smiled to himself as Ray pulled open the side door and got into the back with Watts. In his rear view window, Watts was looking at the mattress on the floor in disdain. She kept her mouth shut though when she sat down on it.

"Thanks man," Ray said, nodding at him with his stupid grin. He tried put an arm around Watts' shoulder but she shrugged him off.

"Don't thank me, thank Claire, she talked me into it," John told him shortly as he turned on the engine. Allison got in the front beside Claire. Noticing the puffiness of her face, she glared at John. He ignored it. It was her fault anyway. "Right, where to?─ and don't fucking touch anything or I swear to God I will kill you."

Ray's hand stopped halfway to the Carroll Dunham. "Cool painting."

"Thanks, I stole if off Allison's parents─ Do you want it back?" he asked the scowling girl.

Allison didn't even pretend to think about it. "No."

"You're going to get in so much trouble!" gasped Claire, shaking her head. "Allison, that's worth two thousand dollars at least!" John stared at his girlfriend, shocked that she was concerned about such a thing. As far as he knew that was pocket money for her.

"They'll just send me to the psychiatrist like they always do," Allison replied as she began to pick at her nails. "Even if I tell them John took it, they won't believe me."

"That's because you're a compulsive liar."

"…Can you get yourself prescribed Ritalin?" asked a hopeful Ray after a moment's pause. John had almost forgotten about them. It was a pity he'd remembered.

The dark haired girl turned in her seat to look at him. "I don't have an attention deficit disorder, why would I?"

"It gives you a good buzz," said Ray. "It's like Coke but without all the heart palpitations, know what I'm saying? That's right, right Bender?"

John ignored him.

"Hey, any of you seen the new Police Academy movie? There's this guy in it who can sound like a police siren. It's fucking awesome!"

And then he proceeded to try and imitate it. From the corner of John's eye, Claire had the good grace to flash him an apologetic smile.

"Allison?" he said, interrupting Ray's painful monologue of stupidity. "What did Steff McKee say after you stapled his shirt closed?"

For a moment Allison just sat there, confused as to how they had heard. She looked from his to Claire's face and back again quizzically until finally Watts put her out of her misery.

"My friend, Andie told Stan- _Claire_ ," she corrected herself quickly. John glanced down at Claire's face and sure enough, there was a ghost of a satisfied smile playing on lips. "She's the one who he was harassing."

"Oh…" Allison settled back into the car upholstery, a wicked smile spread across her face. "He said, ' _Bitch! This is Egyptian cotton._ '"

John nearly drove the van off the road he was laughing so hard.

 _To be continued..._

* * *

A/N: So hopefully now you're beginning to see things taking shape.

As always, thank you for reading and for reviewing the previous chapters to everyone but especially those beautiful people who have done that. Feedback as always is welcomed and encouraged. Next chapter has the final part of this night, and then some lovely repercussions.


	8. Chapter 8

'Youth Novels'

Chapter Eight

They dropped off Ray first, John insisted on it. Cock-blocking wasn't his style but Watts looked twisted up in knots trying to get away from him. That was punishment enough in itself in John's book. For the entire drive to the small white picket abode, she said nothing, not that he expected her to. She'd slipped into the darkness of his van like a mouse hiding from a cat, and crouched there, face down and shadowed. Occasionally John would catch a glance of her blonde hair in his rear view mirror or the beat of her thin hands slapping against her thighs.

"Thanks man!" Ray mouthed through the window.

The street light in front of his house had turned his hair to red hot spikes and blocked out his pimps. John could almost tolerate looking at him in that light. Something had been murmured to Watts too. Sentimental most likely, maybe he'd even tried to land a kiss.

They watched in silence as keys slipped through Ray's fingers with a soft curse.

"What a tard," John scoffed, unable to contain himself any longer.

Claire giggled lightly. He jacked the van into gear and they rolled away down the sleek black road. _Fucking Police Academy_. He was glad as hell they were no longer going to the drive-in.

"I live the other way," Watts piped up, irritated. His mouth curled. _Fuck her too._ She should be gracious that he was even giving her a lift at all.

"I need to sing by the garage. I'm fresh outta cigs. Someone keeps robbing mine," he eyed his girlfriend reproachfully.

"You keep offering."

And she gave him that look, the one so soft and sweet and innocently beguiling. Greater men had launched a thousand ships for that look, what chance did his cigarettes have?

John pushed his heart back down his throat. "Only cause you never have any of your own."

"I don't have any of my own because I don't smoke usually."

"Hypocrisy does not become you."

"How is that hypocritical? I only smoke when I'm around you."

"You're bad for her health," announced Allison idly. She was dabbing the cigarette ash on the dashboard with the tips of her fingers turning her skin to grey and smoke. Watts snorted back a snigger. "Why don't you like him?" She was asking about Ray.

"He doesn't like anyone," Claire teased.

Her head was rolled back against his arm, the tips of her hair splayed against the blue denim of his jacket in beams of orange and gold; his own personal sunset over the ocean to warm him both inside and out. As they hit the red, amber and green of the stoplight, the beads of sweat on her still slick forehead were illuminated like an exploding nebula. John couldn't compare her to diamonds anymore. There was nothing impressive about diamonds except the mining.

"Correction," he threw his cigarette out the window. "No one likes Ray. Ask Watts, she just spent an entire evening with him. I'd imagine there were more humane forms of torture invented during the medieval ages."

"He's not bad, he's just not my type," said Watts, obviously trying to scrape together the remnants of her pride. "He's fine to talk to, better than _most_ guys. At least he's got good taste in music."

It was a dig at him and Blue Oyster Cult. John glanced at her in the rear view mirror. "So if a Down Syndrome kid had, what you consider, a "good taste in music" would you date him?"

There was a stunned silence. A satisfied smirk split across his face. It was too easy to enrage girls. Everything was fucking politically correct and precious to them. Allison was grinning. Good for her.

"…John, that is like really insensitive," said Claire in a slow and diplomatic fashion, like she was teaching a two year old not to wipe its ass with its hands. "Shayne and I volunteer with Down Syndrome children at Clearbrook-" _Of course, they did. Saint fucking Claire._ Luckily, she didn't catch the roll of his eyes. "-The kids there really like music. Dancing and singing is a huge part of the work we do with them."

"My apologies, Mother Teresa."

She let out a small angry hiss as she slumped back against his arm, like steam escaping from a boiling pot. "Forget I said anything."

"The point is, Claire; you wouldn't date one no matter how many Duran Duran tapes he's got."

"Oh, I don't know… I'm dating you, aren't I-?" Watts' laugh broke the air. Even John had to smile. "-Besides, I don't think anyone who listens to a band called _Judas Priest_ has a right to insult anyone's tastes," She held up the cassette.

"Does the name offend your Catholic sensibilities, Saint Claire?"

" _Hardly._ It's just stupid."

"So you won't mind it if I play the tape for you then?"

Before it could even register, he pushed the eject button on the sorely abused tape player with vindictive glee and snatched the cassette from her hand before ramming it in the mouth. _Eat me alive_ came thrashing on in its fast beat tempo. Claire looked as if she'd just swallowed a fish.

"This song is about getting a blow job," he told her cheerfully.

Claire glowered and lowered the volume. "You are so crude! Even your music is crude."

"Christ, you're such a prude."

She bristled immediately. Biting back a smile, John cast a sidelong glance to Allison who was shaking with laughter. He should probably let it drop. Claire didn't like talking about sex. It was too fun though to watch her squirm. The girl had some serious issues.

"I just don't think it's the sort of thing that needs to be sung about in a song."

"Claire," he said patiently. "Half the pop crap you hear these days is just a subtext for sex. That new blonde chick, Madonna or Mini Magda, whatever her name is, is down for it and so is Blondie. Music, no matter what the genre, has always been about sex. Fucking _Greensleeves_ is all about Henry the VIII trying to bone Anne Boleyn."

" _Greensleeves_ is about him proving his love to her. She'd rejected him before because she thought that he only wanted to seduce her and that's why he had to tell her that he loved her."

"And thus he was able to get into her pants because she fell for it."

"He later chopped off her head," added Allison as she pushed the ash into long thin grey coke lines. "So he could marry Jane Seymour."

He nodded in gratitude to the girl. "See? Sex, Claire. It's all about sex."

Her upper lip stiffened distastefully. "That is a really cynical way to view the world, John. Not everyone lies about being in love just to have sex…"

There it was again, the little niggling doubt in her voice, like she was suspicious of something. Surely she would know by now that he was an asshole not a shitbag? _The wallet,_ his conscience niggled at him _._ He'd have to do something about the damn wallet, but making Duncan toss it right now would be too much like stapling his balls to the line. He wasn't ready for that yet.

"Self-entitled pricks like Jenns do," he said, pushing it out of his mind.

She smiled.

"You mean to tell us that you've never fed a girl a fast one?" interjected Watts. He shook his head. "Not ever? Not even once?"

She'd said it to make him uncomfortable, stupid bitch. He couldn't not answer it. The way Claire was looking at him all doe eyed and waiting, letting him know he couldn't blow it off. This was serious. Claire was serious, and he was serious about her. Fuck Watts with two hockey sticks and a shovel.

"If you have to bullshit someone into having sex then you're doing it wrong."

Watts let out a soft 'huh' of surprise. He could see her eyes now, hooded with begrudging respect. She'd raised her head a little to reflect the top of her face in the mirror.

"…Huh."

" _What?"_ His temper flared.

"I'm surprised, that's all. I never figured you to be that much of a _gentleman_."

 _Gentleman, hah!_ "I don't say stuff I don't mean. Since when have I ever said something to you that I don't mean?"

"Right back at you."

Her face was locked in hatred right now. John relaxed a little. Hatred he could deal with. He thrived off it. It was the other stuff that confused him. _The wallet._ Claire was settled back against him again, her suspicion gone. He felt a little guilty. She looked far too excited for his thundering heart to take, like she wanted to be the first to be told it. Christ, girls were weird.

"You say stuff you don't mean all the time," interjected Allison. "For instance, you told Andrew that you wanted to be just like him and get a lobotomy and a pair of tights."

"It's called sarcasm, look it up in a dictionary sometime. Fucking _required_ uniform," he shook his head as a soft smile spread across his face. That had been funny. Dweebie was comic gold.

"So why don't you like Ray? _"_ Allison asked again.

"Why do you need to know?"

She shrugged. "He seems _okay?"_

John sucked in a deep breath in preparation. "Ray's a STD. He's a goddamn freeloading vampire. He only hangs around us cause he's hoping to score free dope. Half of the time he's paying off a tab."

"Why do you keep giving it to him for free?" asked Claire.

"I don't. Garth does. He always goes splits with Garth cause he knows I'll let him get me back later. Nine times out of ten it all comes from Garth's pocket and McCarthy just fobs him off, saying he'll pay him back."

"That's Garth's problem, not yours," pointed out his girlfriend in her empathetic way. "If he's dumb enough to fall for it then why do you care?"

 _Care?_ What a word. It was Garth's business, true but it irritated him. Arnie, his sister, his Mom, everyone could do whatever they liked and Garth took it. John could do whatever he liked to him and Garth just fucking took it. No pride, no self-respect, he was a gutless turd in every sense of the word. It made him wince. Vernon again. He couldn't get those words out of his head. "…You ought to spend a _little more_ time _trying_ to make something of yourself and a _little less_ time _trying to impress people_." _Screw him._

"He lets people walk all over him," he said eventually. "It's fucking pathetic. _"_

"Is that why you're such a jerk to him? Because he puts up with it?" Allison stared at him imploringly, her little face all solemn and judging. "He didn't like what you said in art class about his sister."

What did he said again? _Tampons? That's an interesting euphemism for your friends' dicks_ ─ that was it. Brown eyes stared back hard. In the washing machine of John's mind, the rise cycle switched on and he was all at once flooded with shame. She was right, and Goddamn her. He kept his eyes trained on the wheel for a moment, not daring to look at Claire's face.

"It's not my problem that he can't handle the truth. Besides, he was so stoned I'm surprised he even noticed."

"What did he say?" Claire asked her curiously.

"Doesn't matter," he shot Allison a warning look as she began to open her mouth. _Garth's sister. No, no, not another word._ "So I said it? So what? I've got a policy of not giving a shit just in case you haven't noticed."

" _Liar."_

Everyone jolted and into one another like skittles as the tires screeched to a halt and the painting fell over. Claire was pissed; her eyes and mouth were dancing. John ignored her.

"You don't know jackshit about me and Garth ─ Got that?" Perfectly oval pink fingernails pressed gently into his thigh to calm him. "-So either keep it to yourself or you can take it outside and walk. Either way is fine by me."

Allison looked neither hurt nor offended. She didn't push back though; she didn't even give him that weird bird look of hers. Her lips screwed closed in a thin line and her feet planted face forward. There was silence from the back too. Allison should have realised the score was different. Allison should have known when to leave well alone. It wasn't Saturday detention anymore.

He took his foot off the break and the wheels rolled forward, gradually picking up pace. Judas Priest was annoying him. He turned it off, and festered in the darkness of his own guilt and shame. Maybe Vernon was right? No, no, he couldn't be. John wouldn't let him be.

"Is that _Vernon?"_

Speak of the devil. John's eyes shot up to the familiar pompous black Merc turning right at the crossroads in front of them. Sure enough, there in the driver's seat looking like a 70s kiddie fiddler was the Dick himself. He breezed through the lights, not noticing them and turned into the large carpark of the late night Liquor & Grocery on the top of Main Street.

As soon as the lights turned green, John swung the van sideways as fast as he could, his eyes trained on the back of Shermer's _finest_ Vice-Principal as he stepped out of his car. He'd show him a gutless turd. He was going to ruin his entire night; his entire life too.

"John?!" Claire was wide eyed and alarmed. He must've looked insane at the speed he was going.

"Change of plan." He pointed to Vernon's car.

Her eyes widened even more as she put two and two together. "No! No! There are security cameras outside."

"They're fake."

"How do you-" she had the good sense to stop herself. "He'll see you. He'll be in and out of there like a light. No one goes shopping for that long at this time. It's not worth it."

"I beg to differ, Princess. He fucking deserves it."

There were no arguments there. John hadn't told either of them what had happened in the closet, his pride wouldn't let him. Besides, he didn't need to. They'd already seen just how twisted up the old bastard was.

"He won't see me," he assured her as he pulled up into a side street and killed the engine. "One of you will go in and keep watch."

"He probably knows that I'm dating you. He'll be able to put two and two together, John."

John highly doubted that. His eyes fell of Allison. The girl was already getting out of the passenger seat. With a grin, he reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out a spray can.

"You-" he pointed to Watts. "-with me." For a second he thought the girl was about to protest. "Consider it payback for the ride home," he added.

She rolled her eyes at him, and sneered but she got out behind him nevertheless. One thing that could be said about Watts was at least she had a sense of fairness. It was really too bad that she wasted her time firing it at him and Duncan.

"You're going to leave me by myself?" Claire demanded, her arms crossed huffily across her chest.

"Go into the shop with Allison. You can buy me some cigarettes," he told her, half joking.

"I won't get served."

"You will; you're not Watts."

"Why _her?_ "

John glanced over his shoulder at Watts. "Because I need someone to keep watch while I'm out here too and I don't care if she gets caught," he replied frankly.

"Gee, thanks, asshole," muttered Watts.

It was good enough for Claire though. She shimmed out of the car, grabbing the tail of her long buttery leather coat from behind her like a bridal train and jumped onto the tarmac. Her shoes clicked and clopped. John gave her a quick hurried kiss and watched her hips sway as she walked into the yellow glow of the shop. What on earth was she doing with a guy like him?

He shook it off. Signalling to Watts, they hurried, half crept towards the car. John shook the can in his hand up into a flurry and popped the lid off, shoving it in his pocket. Watts was bent around the side, watching Claire in the window as she pretended to flick through a magazine. They were pretty exposed out there with nothing but the wet night and the stars above them. Had he worn all black it would've been easier to hide against it.

Pulling the bottom of his shirt over his nose, John set to work against the sleek black driver's door. It was a '78 and still in immaculate shape. Vernon probably washed and waxed it every Sunday. The nozzle of the can spat at first. John shook it again. Placing it an inch away from the door, he drew the curve of the S in large, neat, bright yellow. _'..H..E..M..E-'_

"So are you and Ray like totally ready to take it to the next level?" he teased in a mock valley girl accent as he put the legs on the 'R'.

Aggravated, Watts dragged her soles across the tarmac. "You know I could just walk in there right now and tell Vernon what you're up to?"

John scoffed at her. Watts wouldn't do it. Contrary to Vernon's deluded belief, no one liked him. Even those he had never been subjected to his full blown dickheardery knew that something was wrong. It was in the way he walked, in the way he held his hands on his hips before he began to talk. He thought everyone was shit. Kids could smell that sort of thing, they had an inbuilt sensor for bullshit and Vernon was full of it.

"Now, in terms of sex how would you do it? Scissoring or strap ons?"

"You're such a chauvinistic pig."

John oinked and sprayed the # sign. Watts wasn't half as fun to rib as Claire, with Claire you could really see it on her face. She jumped all in and fought, even when she couldn't find the words to fight. Watts lacked… chemistry, yes that was it. Every time Claire got angry at him, all he could think about was grabbing her and kissing her and turning the shouts to groans.

"So did you become a feminist before or after the guy rejected you?" he asked.

Watts glanced back at him, her mouth pursed in a frown. "He never rejected me. I haven't told him…" Her eyes flashed as she remembered herself. _"Shut up."_

"Ah! He likes someone else?"

 _Bingo._ Watts turned away from him, hiding her face in the dark in the same way she did in the van. The tenseness in her back was a sight John was all too familiar with. It was like she was trying to cram all of her feelings back into the miniature box from which they'd exploded.

"…Is that what she told you?" she then said quietly.

He finished the final d. "Who?" John straightened up and surveyed his handiwork. It was a thing of beauty. "Claire?"

"Allison."

For a moment John considered her. Allison hadn't said a word. In fact he was pretty sure the girl had never spoken to Watts before tonight. "What's she got to do with it? Are you guys friends?"

"…I guess we kinda are."

He let out a low whistle and drew an arrow across the doors, connecting the words to the driver's seat. Duncan was not going to be pleased about that. Fuck Duncan. John wasn't too happy about it either but who was he to piss on Allison's parade? All she saw around her were whitened out eyes and empty vodka bottles. It made him protective of her. He locked eyes with Watts, sizing the girl up to see whether or not she was worthy.

"She's weird," he said eventually. "We like her that way so don't fuck her up with your self-righteous feminist bullshit." _And don't you dare try to turn her against us; she's all we've got. Me, Andrew and Claire. She's ours._

"Weird's fine."

John grunted. The girl had no idea what she was letting herself in for. Allison took weird and brought it to fourth dimensional extremes.

"And she's dating the Captain of the Wrestling Team, just so you know."

"Andrew Clarke? Aren't you guys like mortal enemies?"

'Enemies' wasn't the word anymore. They were both real chips of the old block, apples from the same tree. John knew that he could see the world through Andrew's eyes just in the same way Andrew could see it through his. That sort of revelation was the last thing they both needed. It could shatter both their carefully constructed cocoons, and Andrew had one hell of a lot more to lose than John. Out of respect for their one time friendship, he'd let it be.

"In the wise words of Michael Corleone," he turned to her with a grin, but it felt weak to him, fake. "Keep your friends close but keep your enemies even closer." He raised his head slightly over the top of the car. He could see Vernon at the checkout. Claire and Allison were nodding towards the door. "Let's go."

* * *

Claire was surprised when John opened the door for her into the family restaurant. She'd never taken him as one for gentlemanly gestures. Watts and Allison were gone, probably tucked up in their respective beds. John had dropped them off pretty promptly after he desecrated Vernon's car. He wouldn't tell her what he'd written but rather said she should wait until the morning for the surprise. They had however stuck around long enough just to hear the old man curse and drop his beer bottles on the ground.

They settled in a booth by the back, across from one another this time. Claire let her shoe slip off and rubbed it against his calf. John had great legs; she could feel it through the material. He had great everything, she was sure. Unlike the lean athletic boys Claire had been told to like, John was broad and strong, like a football player with good shoulders, she liked that. She liked how opposite to her he looked in every way.

"Aren't you going to take off your gloves?" she said before she could stop herself.

They had ordered pizza, and John still had them on. Sometimes his levels of barbarity were too much for her but the more she let on, the more he held on to them just to annoy her.

John glanced down at the offending items. "Since when has there been a dress code for pizza?"

She peered down her nose at him, a slight wrinkle forming along the bridge of her eyebrow. "Em, since wearing gloves while you're handling food is incredibly unhygienic?"

"I'm not handling, I'm eating."

"You're going to get pizza grease all over─ _NO!"_ she swatted his hand away when he went to rub it on her face. John recoiled in laughter. "Why do you wear them all the time anyway? You're like an old grandmother who's afraid of getting freckles on the back of her hands."

Silence. John put down his slice and unstrapped the glove on his right hand. He tugged it off in one sharp motion and laid down his hand on the table between them, his fingers splayed. Ugly ravaged scars, deep, thick and purple cut into the flesh in a line across the ridge of his knuckles and spreading upwards like branches along the bottom part of his fingers and up to the middle joint.

Claire's breath caught in her throat. "What's that from?"

John picked up his pizza, taking a bite. As he chewed and swallowed, Claire continued to stare down at the knotted marks, a sense of dread growing in the pit of her stomach.

"He slammed the car trunk closed on my hand."

Her jaw dropped. "Your Dad?!"

"Who else-?" Her cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. "-I had to get operated on to set the bones right."

"Why did he do that?"

"…Does there have to be a reason?" The guard was up. John was waiting for her to make a wrong move.

She lowered her gaze to his hand once more. "…I guess not."

Slowly then, he began to speak and as he did, his eyes took over a slightly glazed and harden aspect. "We were bringing bottles to the recycling bank. He had them all in the trunk of his car. My brothers and him had got most them out except one so I decided to help. It figures that I'd drop it."

"So he slammed it closed on your hand?!"

He nodded, taking a swig of his drink.

"That's psychotic!"

"That's my old man. He only got married and had kids because there weren't enough small animals around for him to torture." Claire bit down on her lip as she waited for him to continue. He was staring at his hand, seemingly lost in thought before he released a heavy sigh. "It wouldn't have been so bad but it was an old Ford Fairlane so there wasn't a rubber guard around the bottom lip like you get nowadays. I tried to yank my hand out straight away and it got even more mangled. I'm lucky I didn't lose my fingers."

She dropped her pizza on her plate and pushed it away.

"The damn bastard wouldn't open the trunk until I begged him to─ He wasn't even going to bring me to hospital _either_ until Reinette saw me. I had to sit on the floor of the bedroom me and my brothers shared while they argued over and over again over whether or not I needed medical attention despite the fact that my hand was black and blue and the skin was peeling from my fingers like a banana. You could see the bone-" She put her hand over her mouth. "When I got there, the doctors had to rush me into the operating theatre straight away."

The air all around her felt suddenly and inexplicably stifling. Freshly cooked pizza no longer was an inviting familiarity; it stuck in Claire's throat, sickening her. And there was fear as well, she dreaded him continuing.

"Didn't the Doctors notice something was wrong?" she asked. "Usually they're good at notic-"

"Reinette would have lied about it," he reminded her grimly. Her shoulders slumped a little. She'd forgotten. How could she have forgotten? She didn't want to believe, that's what it was. It was just too horrible. "…When I came around from the op, she wasn't there. I was six. I had a plaster cast from the length of my fingertips up to my shoulder. I didn't know what the hell was going on."

Instinctively, her hand reached across the table and she laced her fingers between his and the scars. His hand felt rough, warm and slightly damp from the cloth of his glove. It was much larger than her own; but still recognisably a boy's hand, a _human's_ hand. John's fingers curled against hers. It was probably the most intimate and vulnerable gesture she'd received from him so far. Suddenly she was filled with this wild notion that maybe if she just held on to him, then she could somehow absorb some of the pain and he wouldn't hurt so much anymore.

"When she did finally show up she… _she'd_ come to tell me that my Dad didn't _want me_ in the house anymore so I couldn't come home…I was gonna have to go someplace else. They stuck me in a Children's home."

She swallowed and rubbed her thumb along the side of his hand, tracing circles into the soft skin there and tried to imagine how tiny it must have been; probably half the size of her own hand. It made her want to cry.

"The older kids liked me," he told her, like it was important. "I made them laugh. I was quick. I used to steal cigarettes from the carers for them and hide them in my cast─ I _wasn't_ like the other kids. They didn't-…I stayed there for _three_ months. _No one_ called, _no one_ visited. When they finally came to get me out, they just played it like it never happened."

While her mind reeled with the horror of it all, John's emotions had already moved on. He was angry now; his eyes had that same furious intensity she'd seen on Saturday.

"You remember that whole speech Dick Face gave?" he asked, struggling to keep himself contained. "The one about him doing society a favour by keeping me locked up in detention─ _remember that?"_ Claire nodded dumbly. "That didn't come outta nowhere─ and I'm not talking about my illustrious high school career here. It all started back when they marked down my stint in juvie hall preparatory on my permanent record. Since then I've been a fucking red flag problem child for every teacher I've ever had from the 1st grade onwards."

His nails were biting into the coves between her knuckles. God, it hurt. It ached all over. All she could feel was the pain. She squeezed back twice as hard but to no avail. He was a million miles away.

"John? My hand…" she breathed at last. She couldn't take the pain, she realised. No matter how much she wished to lessen it. Some things were unbearable.

John looked down immediately, his eyes widening in what Claire could only describe as horror. The spell broke. He released her hand. Claire's fingers sang in relief as the blood rushed back.

"You should've said something sooner," he muttered, looking away.

She smiled a little sheepishly. "You're the one who's bleeding."

He held up his hand to inspect the biting red nail marks on his knuckles. One of them was glistening slightly.

"Fucking claws on you!"

" _Sorry._ "

"Didn't feel it," he admitted, and she didn't think he was saying it just to make her feel better.

"Your nerves are damaged?"

"No."

 _He is used to it._ The silence stretched. She picked up her drink and cupped it in her palms, feeling the condensation work out the tenderness. John was not a brute, hard yes, but never a brute. He wasn't his father. He'd promised her that he never would be.

"Why haven't you run away?" she asked finally.

"Got no place to go."

"You'd find a place if you needed to. I know you."

"…I promised Duncan I'd stick around until his Mom dies."

"His Mom's sick?"

John nodded. He looked away, and Claire took it that the topic was to be dropped. They weren't John's questions to answer, nor hers to ask, no matter how curious she was. Duncan was another lost boy, just like John, just like poor fatherless Garth Volbeck. Life had forgotten them.

"Where will you go?"

"Anywhere?" he shrugged. "I don't know. Once I leave Shermer, I'm never coming back."

It made Claire sad that there was nothing there to keep him. Shermer had always been good to her. It was warm and familiar, like the scent of pine at Christmas. John had never known that warmth. Maybe, _hopefully,_ he would be able to find it elsewhere someday? Still, it saddened her and the more she thought about it, the more anxious she became. Their lives were different, their futures were likely never to cross and the thought of that opened a hole up in her chest, sucking out her fears regarding Steff McKee and the coming day.

"…Promise me you won't leave without saying goodbye first."

John stopped; his pizza half in his mouth. He pulled it out. For a long moment he considered her request as a complex look twisted his face.

"Sure."

So she swallowed what she wanted to say. It would do neither of them any good. John would have to leave one day, they both knew that.

To be continued…

A/N: What makes the whole hand getting trapped in the trunk even more horrendous is that I based that on a true account- everything from the trunk being closed on his hand to being sent to a children's home did in fact happen to a living breathing non-fictional human being. It's not someone I know, I read it somewhere a long time ago and it always stuck with me because it was so horrific.


End file.
